Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lead a ministerial team tasked with determining the mandate and scope of a coalition-backed political investigation committee into the October 7, 2023, massacre.
The team, which is meant to determine the mandate of the committee expected to be established, will convene this coming Monday, alongside the accelerated advancement of the legislation in the Knesset.
Concurrently, Likud MK Ariel Kallner is fast-tracking the political investigative committee bill. According to the proposal, the committee will consist of six members elected by 80 Knesset members.
If an agreement is not reached, three members will be chosen by the coalition and three by the opposition. Any two members of the committee will be authorized to summon any person and investigate any body, and all committee proceedings will be held live. In addition, four observers representing bereaved families will attend the committee’s hearings.
Kallner said four days ago that after legal discussions, the bill for what he termed a “state-national” investigative committee would be submitted to the Knesset.
Gov't to advance bill immediately
According to him, the government will begin advancing the bill immediately, and the proposed legislation will be exempt from the requirement of prior submission and discussion in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation as early as next week.
According to the timetable, a preliminary vote in the Knesset plenum is expected next Wednesday.
In his speech, Kallner said that “the bereaved families and all citizens of Israel deserve answers. We deserve the truth and the whole truth. To that end, we are committed to a full, thorough, uncompromising, and impartial investigation.”
He added that all state systems must be examined, “each and every one of the security echelons, the political echelons, the legal echelons, that have had a role in influencing Israel’s security over the years.”
Netanyahu 'looking for an alibi,' Golan claims
Democrats chairman Yair Golan slammed the decision for the prime minister to head the committee in a statement on X/Twitter.
“Netanyahu heading the committee to determine the mandate? Let’s skip the bureaucracy and just let him write the verdict himself. This isn’t a ‘conflict of interest,’ it’s organized crime under the guise of legality,” he wrote. “The man responsible for the greatest disaster in our history isn’t looking for answers, he’s looking for an alibi.”
“This committee won’t investigate failures; it’ll investigate how to pin the blame on the army, the protest movement, or even the kibbutzniks. The mandate is clear: to absolve the leader so he can cling to power by force.” Golan then pushed for a different state commission of inquiry that would investigate Netanyahu’s knowledge of the October 7 massacre.
“A state commission of inquiry will be established, and Netanyahu will sit there, not at its head, and not as his own lawyer, but as a subject under investigation,” Golan said.