Controversial Norwegian Law postponed, Knesset will not vote on it yet

Yesh Atid faction chairman Meir Cohen said it would enable new MKs to enter the Knesset who were not elected by the public.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Defense Minister Benny Gantz [L] and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [R] wearing masks in the Knesset (photo credit: ADINA VALMAN/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz [L] and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [R] wearing masks in the Knesset
(photo credit: ADINA VALMAN/KNESSET SPOKESPERSON)
A vote in the Knesset plenum on the controversial Expanded Norwegian Law was postponed on Wednesday morning, due to a technical dispute over Knesset committees.
The Knesset's legal advisers said the bill could not come to a vote, because the appropriate Knesset committees to legislated it had not been formed. A meeting of the Knesset's Arrangements Committee that had been set for Wednesday morning was delayed due to disputes over committees.
 
The bill would enable five ministers in Blue and White and two in Likud to quit the Knesset and be replaced by the next candidates on the party’s lists. If the ministers quit the cabinet, they could return to the Knesset at the expense of the new MKs.
A separate bill would give new MKs in factions that have split 24 hours to decide which one to join. The bill could allow candidates of Yesh Atid and Telem, which are in the opposition, to instead join Blue and White in the coalition.
Yesh Atid expressed satisfaction with the bill's postponement, saying "No matter why it was delayed, we are happy that a bill that would have wasted NIS 100 million will not be brought to a vote."
Netanyahu's former Chief of Staff Natan Eshel told Maariv that the real reason the bill was not brought to a vote was that the Likud was worried it would lead to the coalition losing three mandates to the opposition.
The Knesset’s Arrangement’s Committee voted nine to five on Monday morning to expedite the bill, which the new government intended to pass in the first day of voting in the new Knesset on Wednesday.
Among the candidates who would join in Blue and White, two are loyalists of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, two are from Yesh Atid and one from Telem. Gantz wants to pass the bill into law by the beginning of June, because out of his 15 party’s 15 MKs, 12 are ministers and three chair Knesset committees.
“This bill is needed to enable the Knesset to function better,” Blue and White MK Ram Shefa told the Arrangements Committee.
Likud MK Uzi Dayan added: “This is a bill that is needed and is needed as fast as possible.”
But opposition MKs blasted the bill. Joint List MK Ofer Kassif called it shameful and said it “spits in the face of the public.”
Yesh Atid faction chairman Meir Cohen said it would enable new MKs to enter the Knesset who were not elected by the public.
“This government has no shame,” Cohen said. “After swearing-in the largest government in Israel’s history with made-up ministries, they are rushing to create more jobs for themselves.”
Yesh Atid tried in vain to also expedite a bill to give unemployment benefits to the self-employed. But Likud and Blue and White MKs said such a bill needed to be presented by the Finance Ministry.
Three Shas ministers and deputy ministers are expected to quit the Knesset when the bill passes into law. The Shas candidates who would enter the Knesset include Ethiopian-born Rabbi Baruch Gezai and Rabbi Yossi Tayeb of the French immigrant community.
Four of the five Blue and White candidates who would enter the Knesset are women, as are one of the two Likud candidates. If all the ministers and deputy ministers who quit the Knesset are male, the Knesset could rise from 29 women to 34.