Likud party skips vote
High Court override bill swatted down in Knesset - why?
Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted down a bill Wednesday that would have limited the High Court of Justice’s power to strike down laws, after MKs from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party abstained from voting on the opposition measure.
Uri Regev 05/08/2020 17:15
Tags: Likud · Blue and White · coalition · Yamina · Bennett · override clause · Haredim · Shas · UTJ
Naftali Bennett, source: Wikipedia
REPORTED IN TIMES OF ISRAEL
Yamina's ("The Right-WIng Party") attempt at trolling the Likud and the ultra-Orthodox parties failed for the second time. This time it was MK Ayelet Shaked who tried this game, after the recent failure of MK Betzalel Smotrich to get the Knesset to set up an investigative commission to investigate conflicts of interest of the Supreme Court Justices.
It failed not because of lack of support from the Likud and the ultra-Orthodox parties, but rather because the ultra-Orthodox parties have bigger fish to fry in the short-term [see further down].
The first attempt almost succeeded, with the ultra- parties supporting it, but failed by a small margin due to the absence of some of the Likud MKs from the vote, including PM Netanyahu, causing a major brouhaha.
In both instances it was Blue&White that expressed a clear and strong voice against the attempt to undermine the Supreme Court, and it's clear from today's vote that B&W's coalition partners are not eager to have this issue as the determining factor for bringing down the coalition and announcing new elections.
They recognized Yamina's ploy for what it was - political trolling, and voted accordingly. It was the ultra-Orthodox parties' decision to vote it down, even though they wholeheartedly supported it, that caused the Likud to vote against it, in spite of the Coalition Whip's earlier appeal to Netanyahu and his Likud colleagues to support it.
They realized that since the ultra-Orthodox parties were going to vote against it - it was doomed to fail and decided to save themselves the added friction with B&W and the embarrassment of losing the vote.
Likud realized that since the ultra-Orthodox parties were going to vote against it - it was doomed to fail and decided to save themselves the added friction with B&W and the embarrassment of losing the vote.
So, why did the ultra-Orthodox parties decide to vote against it even as they strongly support it as part of their crusade against the Supreme Court? Because the last thing they want today is to further erode the shaky coalition and hasten its demise. This is not because of their love for this coalition, as was evidenced only last week when they expressed their strong anger at B&W for supporting and facilitating the passing [in a preliminary vote at this point] of a new bill that would outlaw "conversion therapy" of LGBTQ.
The reason is that their primary goal at this point is getting hundreds of millions for their yeshivas that are about to collapse financially because of the delays in approving the state budget, and the passing of a new "Draft Bill" in an attempt to preempt the expiration of the existing law, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because of the mass exemption from IDF or National Service it granted tens of thousands of yeshiva students. This is their first priority, and they can't afford to bring the government down and risk both issues exploding. Once these issues are resolved [against the public will, as numerous Hiddush public opinion surveys have demonstrated, and based upon a highly problematic legal basis - which will be challenged again in the Supreme Court] - they and the Likud will undoubtedly attempt to come back to undermining Israel's Supreme Court and the rule of law.