Knesset rejects bill to delay budget deadline, Israel heading to elections

The Knesset rejected a bill that would defer new elections by briefly delaying Tuesday night’s deadline, almost certainly sending Israel to a fourth vote in two years.

Lawmakers voting after midnight Monday rejected the bill that would have given the rival coalition parties a last-ditch chance to reconcile their stark differences, by a vote of 49 to 47.

Speaking at the end of an hours-long debate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again sought to put the blame on his rival Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu told the Knesset that he had spent recent hours trying to secure additional vaccines for Israel and that fighting the virus should be lawmakers’ focus, not fresh elections.

“At this time we should have been uniting forces to prevent these unnecessary elections. At the last moment Benny Gantz backed out of the agreements we had,” Netanyahu said.

Had the bill passed, it would have delayed the deadline to pass a budget for this year from December 23 to December 31. The deadline for approving a budget covering 2021 would be January 5.

The coalition’s Blue and White party has said that if the budgets aren’t passed by those deadlines, the Knesset will dissolve and elections will be held on March 23, even though analysts have suggested Israeli law doesn’t allow for elections to be held less than three months after the Knesset dissolves.

Earlier Monday evening both Likud and Blue and White said that their negotiations on delaying the deadline to pass a state budget had broken down and blamed each other for the failure to reach an agreement.

Blue and White has walked back all the agreements it reached with Likud, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party said in a statement after Gantz appeared to increase his demands just hours after the bill to delay the budget passed its first Knesset committee reading.

“Due to an internal fight in Blue and White, Gantz has retracted all the agreements reached in negotiations between Blue and White and Likud,” Likud said. “It’s unfortunate that Gantz has decided to drag the country to unnecessary elections at the height of the coronavirus crisis.”

The accusation came after Gantz, speaking to his Blue and White MKs, said he had laid out five demands to Netanyahu for his party to support the bill to delay the budget in the plenary: passing a 2020-2021 budget; approving all the senior appointments that have been held up; closing all loopholes that would allow Netanyahu to avoid handing over power to Gantz as part of their rotation agreement; keeping Avi Nissenkorn as justice minister; and approving the Knesset rules of procedure.

“If they want it, they’ll take it. If they don’t, there will be elections,” he said.

According to the Walla news site, Gantz told his party members that he thinks elections will be called on Tuesday.

“I gave Netanyahu my final offer and he’s supposed to get back to me,” Gantz was quoted saying. “I think he’ll say no and the Knesset will be dissolved tomorrow.”

“If I hear tonight that something can be done on this matter, I will update you. If not, the Knesset will turn into a pumpkin tomorrow night,” he reportedly said, referring to the midnight deadline for the state budget that will see the parliament automatically dissolved if no action is taken to postpone it.

Even with Gantz’s approval, however, the bill’s passage in the plenum was undermined due to a rebellion from a number of coalition MKs, and several supporting lawmakers going into coronavirus quarantine.

Hours before the committee meeting started, the Knesset spokesperson announced that Blue and White MK Hila Shay Vazan, a member of the committee, had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, putting her into quarantine. As a result, committee chair and fellow party member MK Eitan Ginzburg was advised to also quarantine because he had met with Shay Vazan last week.

Late Monday afternoon, it was announced that Gantz himself would also be going into quarantine due to contact with Shay Vazan.

Additionally, Blue and White MKs Asaf Zamir, Miki Haimovich and Ram Shefa  also did not support to it.

All three have previously publicly expressed their unease at their party remaining in partnership with Netanyahu.

On Monday afternoon, a fourth Blue and White MK, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, joined the rebellion, saying the “lousy” possibility of new elections would need to be considered “in the face of the intolerable reality of a dysfunctional government.”

Before the disagreements within Blue and White, it was already unclear whether there was a majority to pass the bill. The potential rebel Blue and White MKs, coupled with Likud members who have formed a new rival party under MK Gideon Sa’ar, mean that even if a compromise was reached, it would not necessarily have sufficient support in the Knesset to pass.

Added to that is Likud MK David Bitan, who is seriously ill with COVID-19.

Reports of an agreement on delaying the deadline between Likud and Blue and White came on Sunday evening after the latter party appeared to waver in its ultimatum to Netanyahu’s party to pass the budget by Tuesday’s deadline or face a fresh vote.

Under the power-sharing deal between Likud and Blue and White, a failure to pass a budget is the lone loophole that would let Netanyahu avoid having to give up the premiership to Gantz. Likud has been holding up the budget for months in an effort to renegotiate a more favorable coalition agreement that would see Netanyahu’s one-and-half-year term extended at the expense of Gantz’s equivalent allotment of time as premier, which is currently set to begin in November 2021. Likud is also seeking to curb the power of Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn.