Government repels four 'no confidence votes' initiated by opposition
“There has never been a government that mocked its people more, and it is doing it at the hardest time ever,” Lapid claimed.
By GIL HOFFMANPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz arrive at the Knesset plenum to vote on four no confidence votes against the government(photo credit: KNESSET PRESS SERVICE/ADINA VALMAN)Opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid-Telem) on Monday slammed the newly formed government for “taking money of the middle class and spending it on itself,” a reference to new government ministries that were approved on Sunday and funded by cutbacks in existing ministries.In a meeting of his faction at the Knesset, he said the government cut NIS 3.6 million from the Labor and Social Services Ministry, calling it taking food away from poor children. The money could have paid for 300,000 hot meals in schools, Lapid said.“There has never been a government that mocked its people more, and it is doing it at the hardest time ever,” he said.The Knesset plenum voted 56-30 to form five new government ministries: the Water Resources Ministry, the Higher Education Ministry, the Settlement Ministry, the Community Development Ministry and the Alternative Prime Minister’s Office.Lapid mocked the Expanded Norwegian Law, which was advanced by the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee on Monday and was set to be advanced in the plenum.“The Norwegian Law is being passed quickly, proving that when the government wants, it can pass laws very fast,” he said. “How about a law to help self-employed workers?”The bill will have to pass two more readings in committee and the Knesset plenum before it becomes law. It would enable five ministers in Blue and White and two in other coalition parties to quit the Knesset and be replaced by the next candidates on each party’s list. If the ministers quit the cabinet, they could return to the Knesset at the expense of the new MKs.New MKs in factions that have split would have 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.Lapid told The Jerusalem Post his message to the next Blue and White candidates was that “it is an honor to serve the values and principles they believe in.” He called on them to “act according to their conscience.”Also on Monday, the new government easily overcame its first challenge from four no-confidence votes, the first such votes in the Knesset in a year and a half.The bills, which were sponsored by every opposition faction except Yamina, failed by votes of 66-31, 67-37 and 67-25. They were about diplomatic and economic issues and the size of the government.Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of Judea and Samara “demagoguery and lies.”Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz used his speech to mock Blue and White, saying Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz’s party “wanted influence but got humiliation,” which rhymes in Hebrew. He said Netanyahu would “force Gantz to swallow the poisonous frog of annexation.”
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