Don’t extend Netanyahu’s mandate, opposition urges

New Knesset speaker to be chosen on Monday

President Isaac Herzog should deny prime minister-designate and Likud Party head Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to receive a two-week extension to form a government, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Labor Party leader and Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli argued on Tuesday.

The initial 28 days awarded to Netanyahu will expire on Sunday. The Likud has signed partial deals so far with Otzma Yehudit, Noam and the Religious Zionist Party (RZP), but has yet to sign with Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ). Netanyahu has not officially requested the additional two weeks but is widely expected to do so.

“The Netanyahu bloc’s request to replace the Knesset speaker shows that the government has been constructed. Netanyahu’s request from the president for additional days for this purpose is a trick,” Sa’ar wrote on Twitter.

“The goal: passing problematic

personal laws according to his partners’ demands prior to forming the government. This is not why the law enabled the president to give an extension. The president should deny Netanyahu’s request,” he wrote.

Michaeli put out a statement with similar arguments.

“In my opinion, this request is another sophisticated political ploy by the prime minister-designate,” she said.

“This request, if submitted,

is not intended to allow fevered negotiations between the factions of the house to continue. Its real purpose is to pass far-reaching legislative changes, which in practice change the system of governance in Israel and, in addition, give a green light to governmental corruption, damage the powers of the court and profoundly erode the checks and balances between the branches of government,” Michaeli said.

“In this way, through a legislative blitz over those 14 days, MK Netanyahu seeks to severely damage the democratic character of the country – and without him bearing prime ministerial responsibility for the enactment of these draconian laws,” the Labor leader wrote. “In any case, given the aforementioned time frame, it will not be possible to hold substantive public and parliamentary debate regarding those constitutional proposals.”

The Likud announced late Monday night that it had finally amassed the 61 signatures it needed in order to force Knesset speaker MK Mickey Levy to convene the Knesset plenum in order to choose a new speaker. UTJ had refrained from giving its signatures due to disagreements in the negotiations, but the sides made “significant progress” on Monday night and UTJ relented.

Levy set the vote for 4:00 p.m. next Monday.

“Unfortunately, according to reports in the media, the unusual request to choose a Knesset speaker not on the day of the government’s swearing in, is intended to enact legislation that will enable people who were convicted and sentenced to a suspended jail sentence, to serve as ministers,” Levy said in a statement late Monday night.

“Despite the enormous pain knowing that this is the intention of the developing coalition, I will act responsibly and respect the will of the voters – and the plenum will be convened according to law and the High Court’s ruling on the topic,” he said.

RZP MK Simcha Rothman criticized Levy for delaying the vote.

“The High Court convened the plenum using a special directive on a Thursday when the Left wanted to replace a Knesset speaker,” Rothman wrote on Twitter, referring to an incident in 2020 at the start of the 23rd Knesset when outgoing speaker MK Yuli Edelstein refused to convene the plenum in order to hold the vote for his replacement despite being directed to do so by the High Court.

“The ‘statesmanlike’ Mickey Levy is delaying and passing time despite the ability to replace the speaker today or tomorrow,” he said.

“These people do not know what democracy, statesmanship or respectful behavior is. [They are] an opposition to the state,” Rothman wrote.

Levy was referring to Shas chairman MK Arye Deri, who was sentenced in January to a 12-month suspended jail sentence for tax offenses as part of a plea bargain. If Central Election Committee Chairman High Court Justice Yitzhak Amit rules that his actions included moral turpitude, the current law says that Deri cannot serve as a minister for seven years.

Shas MK Yakov Asher, therefore, already put forward a proposal to change the law so that it only applies to actual and not suspended jail sentences, and Shas is demanding to pass the law prior to the government’s swearing in.

The coalition will pass a number of additional laws before the swearing in, including one demanded by presumed incoming National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir that will grant him greater control over the Israel Police.

The coalition may also erase the law that the previous coalition passed enabling four MKs to break away from a party in order to form an independent one. The previous coalition’s goal was to encourage disgruntled Likud members to break away. There are currently a number of Likud MKs who are unhappy with Netanyahu’s conduct. Erasing the law will cause it to revert back to what it was previously, where a third of the party’s MKs are necessary to break away. The Likud won 32 seats in the election, so this would eliminate the danger of any splintering.

The Knesset Arrangements Committee convened on Tuesday to discuss the formation of four new interim committees: one each to deal with the Deri law and the Ben-Gvir law, an interim Aliyah and Integration

Committee, and a special committee comprised of members of both the interim Finance Committee and interim Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, in order to approve specific defense-related budget changes. The Arrangements Committee did not hold a vote on the formation of any of the committees.

Labor MK Gilad Kariv said at the committee meeting that Netanyahu and his partners wished to enact a “blitz of personal legislation according to the demands of Deri and BenGvir.” Kariv later called on the State Attorney’s Office to consider canceling the plea deal it reached with Deri, which he claimed “ended up being a false pretense,” as it was based on the expectation that the Shas leader would not rejoin politics.

“If he [Deri] is attempting to escape a judicial decision about moral turpitude by enacting personal laws, he probably has a reason to do so,” Kariv said. or said that “it was their dream to educate the children of Israel, to fashion their future.”

Gantz said that “what we are seeing is that instead of pluralism, which strengthens Israel’s resilience, we are receiving extremism.” Gantz accused Maoz of being an “anti-educational figure” and said that the teachers and municipal leaders had a serious responsibility over what enters their children’s schools.

Gantz compared what he called the “chopping up” of the education ministry to that of the Defense Ministry, and argued that this was a “very problematic” situation.

“Netanyahu thinks that he will dismantle and rule – he will dismantle and will not rule. There is no chance that he will be able to rule with this series of dismantling. The citizens of Israel are worthy of services and governance,” Gantz said. He concluded by calling on Netanyahu to stop the “damage.”

Shasha-Biton claimed that Maoz was “motivated by radical ideology” and wanted to “ruin the public school system from within.” She accused Netanyahu of “abandoning” the education of Israel’s children in favor of a “cannibalization” of the education ministry.

The outgoing education minister debunked the claim that she had taken Bible study out of the curriculum, explaining that she had passed a reform that changed the format of the matriculation exam but in a way that did not affect the number of hours of study. She further accused the incoming coalition of spreading lies for months on this issue.

“Netanyahu put their education in the hands of people who think that the role of women is merely to bear children and raise them, who equate homosexuality and pedophilia, and a man who states that he only wants a Jewish, not democratic, state,” Shasha-Biton accused.

“So how can we give such a person plans for gender equality, women’s rights, minority rights, that deal with tolerance, accepting the other and sexual education?” she asked.

Karhi of the Likud also spoke

at the conference, and attacked its hosts. Karhi claimed that history was repeating itself, as “2,200 years ago Antiochus and his colleagues sat and planned how to make the people of Israel forget the Torah. They had enormous funding from foreign progressive funds and focused on a number of key issues” that were intended on “canceling the holidays” and barring circumcision.

Karhi claimed that today the same was happening. He repeated the misleading claim that the Bible and Jewish heritage had been taken out of the curriculum, and accused the government of entering “anti-Zionist” content via foreign organizations.

“The heroic spirit that defeated the progressive spirit 2,200 years ago, won this time also. More Bible, more Jewish history, more Jewish identity. That is what the people choose, and with God’s help that is what will be,” Karhi said.

In addition to the conference, both Labor and Yesh Atid announced on Tuesday that politicians from their parties would join protests at bridges across the country on Friday and Saturday. Yesh Atid circulated a digital flyer about the protests with the slogan, “Stopping the Insanity, Saving the Country.” •