In his remarks from the Knesset podium on Wednesday evening ahead of the voting, Bennett said passing the budget was “the most important moment since the government was formed.”
He said the new budget being introduced comes “after three and a half years of chaos, failed management and paralysis, years in which the country was a tool in a personal game, years of four election campaigns one after another at a dead end.”
The diverse composition of the government led by Bennett — made up of right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties plus an Islamist faction — had, however, complicated the effort to pass a budget, with the opposition of a single lawmaker theoretically able to bring down the wafer-thin coalition.
Some individual lawmakers used the coalition’s tiny margin of 61 seats in the 120-person Knesset to force their issues, such as New Right’s Zvi Hauser, who threatened to boycott the plenum unless more money for the National Library was included in the budget.
In another incident, Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin agreed to postpone and reconsider the planned eviction of a family from public housing in the town of Gan Yavne, after two coalition lawmakers said they would leave the plenum Thursday morning to observe the removal of the family.
As the marathon session began, it became clear that the Joint List, a predominantly Arab Israeli party, was voting with the rest of the opposition against the budget, meaning that the coalition would likely need all of its lawmakers present for the entire voting process. However, the Joint List voted with the coalition on objections raised by Likud, giving the coalition a bit of breathing room.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu also helped the coalition along at one point, accidentally voting with the government. The same mistake was also made by Shas head Aryeh Deri, though their votes did not change the outcome in either case.
While failure to pass the bill could have seen the government collapse, passage of the economic plan is expected to stabilize the coalition for the near future at least, amid attempts by the opposition to drive wedges between the coalition’s various ideologies.
Throughout the night, MKs fortified themselves with candies and sweets to stay awake and alert as they sped through votes, while also aiming bitter accusations across the aisle at each other.
In a speech ahead of the voting, Netanyahu lauded anti-government protesters who gathered in Tel Aviv’s HaBima Square Tuesday, saying they came to “drive out the darkness “of the current government.
Digging into the ruling coalition, Netanyahu denounced the “government of lies,” which, he asserted, would raise the costs of living for Israelis.
Earlier, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman said it would be the first budget passed in three and a half years “because of the personal interests of one man, who was willing to sacrifice Israel’s economy” for that interest — another reference to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is widely believed to have torpedoed the most recent budget under his power-sharing government with Benny Gantz, in order to bring down that coalition and avoid passing the premiership on to him as had been agreed between the two as part of their deal.
That fight led directly to the collapse of the last government and the most recent election, the results of which saw Netanyahu ousted from office.
Re: Israel elections April 2019, September 2019, March 2020, March 2021.
Originally Posted by Ludicus
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