Kadima will retain control over the Knesset’s Science and Technology Committee,
rather than upgrade to a committee considered more prestigious, party officials
told coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) this week.
The coalition
agreement between Likud and Kadima entitles Kadima to three Knesset committees.
It has already received control over the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,
which will be chaired by MK Ronnie Bar- On, and the Economics Committee, whose
head will be chosen later this month.
Elkin offered Kadima to trade the
Science and Technology Committee for either of two Likud-controlled committees:
The Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, headed by MK Danny
Danon, or the Committee on the Status of Women, chaired by MK Tzipi
Hotovely.
But Science and Technology Committee chairwoman Ronit Tirosh
(Kadima), who is close to Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz, chose to keep her
current committee, which she described as fascinating.
Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu’s loyalists had considered giving Danon’s committee to
Kadima, to punish Danon for taking two steps last week that the prime minister
did not like.
Danon angered Netanyahu by being the only Likud MK who
voted against the coalition agreement with Kadima. He also refused
Netanyahu’s request to refrain from running against him for chairman of the
Likud convention.