In a major political gamble, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has said she will bring the controversial family reunification law for a vote in the Knesset on Monday despite not being assured of enough backers to pass it into law.
After talks among coalition partners on a compromise proposed by Meretz MK and Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej foundered, the government is now hoping that enough opposition MKs who back the statute in principle, will abstain or vote for it to prevent the current law from expiring on Tuesday.
The law, which was first passed in 2003 as a temporary measure, stops Palestinians who marry Israelis from automatically acquiring Israeli citizenship on security grounds. Coalition partners Ra’am and Meretz oppose the proposal in its current form.
Although the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and MKs from the Religious Zionist Party have all voted in favor of extending the family reunification law in the past, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to allow opposition MKs to vote in favor of the bill now, arguing that it would be better to enact a stricter immigration bill that would stop Palestinian naturalization permanently.
Netanyahu and the opposition have taken advantage of the political crisis that the proposal has caused the coalition and has justified his opposition to it by arguing that since the coalition was formed with non-Zionist party Ra’am, and with left-wing Meretz, it must now endure the consequences of that decision.
As the law expires on Tuesday, the government must hold a vote on extending it on Monday in order to try and prevent its expiry.
“The reunification law will be brought to a vote tomorrow in its current format,” Shaked said on Sunday before taking her seat at the weekly cabinet meeting.
She said that opposition leaders had seen Shin Bet documents asserting that renewing the law was vital.
Meretz MK Mossi Raz said on Sunday that if the bill is brought in its current form on Monday, the party would vote against it.
The government can secure 52 votes in favor of the bill, and there 16 known votes against it from Ra’am, Meretz, and the Joint List. This means that the opposition will need at least another 36 MKs to vote against it to defeat the government.
There have been some murmurs of discontent within the Likud against Netanyahu’s decision to oppose the law. Party stalwart MK Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet, expressed his opposition to Netanyahu’s position because it is seen by the right-wing as important to Israel’s security requirements.
The government’s strategy is essentially to gamble that enough opposition MKs, particularly from the Likud and the Religious Zionist Party, will be sufficiently discomfited by the notion of toppling a national security law to abstain or absent themselves from the vote and allow it to pass.
The Likud has not yet publicized its final position on how it will vote when the law comes before the Knesset on Monday, however.
In a video clip Netanyahu posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, he alleged that the current government “is not able to protect the State of Israel’s Jewish character,” in light of coalition partners Ra’am and Meretz’s opposition to the bill, denying the coalition a majority.
Netanyahu said the current bill was insufficient and that the proposal recently introduced Likud which would stop Palestinians who marry Israelis from ever getting citizenship had to be passed to stop “the entry and naturalization of masses of Palestinians into Israel every year.”
Netanyahu has offered to vote for a two-month extension of the current citizenship law in return for then passing the Likud immigration law during that period and described the government’s hopes that the opposition would help it renew the citizenship law as “indescribably impudence and shame.”