Legislators ’efforts to dissolve the Knesset and call new elections Wednesday night were exhausted amid a slew of political schemes and machinations that saw MPs return home in the evening, turned into a possible voting before midnight and then returned home when voting was postponed to Thursday.
The final readings of the vote to disperse the Knesset and call new elections were rescheduled for Thursday morning at 9 a.m., extending a process that has become increasingly chaotic since MPs overwhelmingly approved the preliminary legislation last week.
Political haggling over what legislation should be passed before the dissolution of the Knesset significantly delayed the process of preparing the dissolution bill in the Knesset House Committee over the course of Wednesday.
The Yisrael Beytenu and Labor coalition parties were determined to pass a law to speed up and streamline the development of a metro system for central Israel, the so-called Metro Law, before the Knesset was dissolved.
As the internal struggle dragged on into the evening, the opposition, however, demanded in return for its support that MP Amichai Chikli’s defector status be reversed. Chikli, who was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Yamina of outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, was dismissed by the party for opposing the coalition, preventing him from running for any existing faction of the Knesset in the upcoming elections.
Get the daily edition of The Times of Israel by email and never miss our main stories
By registering, you accept the conditions
Undoing Chikli’s designation as a “deserter” could allow him and his renowned Yamina comrades, Idit Silman and Nir Orbach, to secede from the party as a separate faction and join opposition leader Benjamin’s Likud. Netanyahu, while taking away the allocated election funding. It is unclear whether this move would be legally allowed.
Yisrael Beytenu and Labor tried to approve the deal, but Yamina and Justice Minister Gidon Sa’ar’s New Hope party bitterly opposed it, leading to a breakdown in efforts to approve the bill. dissolution law Wednesday night.
“The fact that Amichai Chikli is prepared to sacrifice the subway, which will change the lives of millions of Israelis, to improve his personal political career is the height of misery and opportunism,” Yamina said in a statement. “Every Israeli in an unnecessary traffic jam will know it’s because of Amichai Chikli.”
Sa’ar tore the Likud by the proposal.
“Taking blackmail in the Chikli case is a corrupt agreement that goes against the law and the decision of the Knesset committee that voted on the matter,” Sa’ar tweeted. “This ‘money laundering’ will also be an incentive to leave the parties the day after the elections. The opposition has been campaigning for more defectors and the coalition, unfortunately, is now giving it a seal of approval. “
Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman speaks during a faction meeting in the Knesset on June 27, 2022 (Olivier Fitoussi / Flash90)
As a result, Yisrael Beytenu said he would not withdraw his objections to the bill, threatening to lengthen the dissolution process throughout Thursday.
If the Knesset does not dissolve at midnight on Thursday, long-standing legislation applying Israeli law to Jews living in the West Bank will expire, a situation that could have serious legal consequences.
If the Knesset dissolves before midnight on Thursday, this so-called settlers law will be automatically renewed for six months during the interim government period.
Meanwhile, the Joint List of the Opposition of Mostly Arab Parties presented a number of objections to the dissolution bill specifically aimed at further delaying the process, in the hope that the Knesset will only be dissolved once the law expires. of settlers.
Meanwhile, legislation to help allow Israel to join the U.S. Visa Waiver Program appears to be dead due to the opposition’s refusal to let it pass, despite requests from the US ambassador. American Thomas Nides.
A modest handover ceremony for Bennett to incoming interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid, which was scheduled for Thursday morning, will now be postponed until Friday, assuming the Knesset successfully dissolves by midnight on Thursday.
The imminent dissolution of the Knesset was agreed between Lapid and Bennett last week after several rebellions by coalition MPs, which undermined the government’s ability to pass legislation and govern effectively.
The election, if called, will be Israel’s fifth in three and a half years and will cost about 2.4 billion NIS.
The coalition intends to hold elections on November 1, while the opposition prefers October 25, when ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students will still be on holiday and therefore more likely to vote.
The dissolution bill will be brought forward to the fullness of the Knesset with November 1 as the stipulated election date, along with an objection from the opposition calling for October 25. The matter will be decided by a vote in the full Knesset when the bill reaches its final readings.
It’s not (just) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel is not a transaction for an online service, such as a Netflix subscription. The ToI community is for people like you who care about a common good: making sure balanced, responsible coverage of Israel remains available to millions of people around the world for free.
Of course, we’ll remove all ads from your page and you’ll have access to amazing content just for the community. But your support gives you something deeper than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the community Times of Israel Join our community Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You are a dedicated reader
We are very happy to have read articles from the X Times of Israel over the last month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel ten years ago, to offer demanding readers like you mandatory coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other media, we have not created any payment wall. But because the journalism we do is expensive, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important in helping us support our work by joining The Times of Israel community.
For just $ 6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel WITHOUT ADVERTISING, as well as access to exclusive content available only to members of the Times of Israel community.
Thank you, David Horovitz, founding editor of The Times of Israel
Join our community Join our community Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this