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World Jewish News
Budget passes first Knesset reading
17.06.2009
Amid an opposition boycott, the Knesset approved the first reading of the biennial budget and Economic Arrangement Bill on Wednesday afternoon.
Amid an opposition boycott, the Knesset approved the first reading of the biennial budget and Economic Arrangement Bill on Wednesday afternoon.
The leaders of the opposition's Knesset boycott had announced early Wednesday afternoon that after a meeting to assess the situation, they would step up their war of attrition by boycotting the debate, originally slated for midnight tonight.
The House Committee responded to the opposition leaders' announcement by moving forward the budget debate to Wednesday afternoon.
The boycott of the budget debate is an unprecedented step by the united heads of opposition parties, and was taken - in their words - "in light of the worsening of the crisis and breaking the rules of democracy."
"The serial trampling of the status of the Knesset and the attempt to legislate personal, political and corrupt laws is unbearable," said the opposition leaders in a statement released following the decision. "In a country that does not have a constitution, there is a supreme importance to maintaining the parliamentary norms, and we are thus demanding that Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin return sanity to the Knesset and to immediately bring an end to this crisis."
Rivlin had called off a meeting between himself and opposition leaders that was slated for Wednesday morning late Tuesday night after Kadima offered to send faction chairwoman Dalia Itzik to the meeting instead of opposition leader Tzipi Livni. It is Itzik - and not Livni - who has been the organizing factor within the opposition's protest.
Earlier in the day, a hearing on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's foreign policy was canceled after the opposition announced that although they had initiated the hearing, they would be absent from the floor while the hearing was underway. Netanyahu was slated to address the Knesset after being brought in through a petition signed by 40 opposition MKs to discuss "the prime minister's confused policy."
Opposition members also pulled their private members' bills - even those that had the support of the coalition - from the order of business of the plenum.
Leaders of opposition factions announced Tuesday afternoon that they were launching the struggle against their will, after the government "broke the rules" and submitted a series of legislative measures designed to change procedure in order to make life easier for the coalition. Among the laws up for a vote are the so-called "Mofaz Law" which would change the rules so that a rebel faction would no longer need to constitute one-thirds of the party in order to break away, but would only need seven members.
In addition, the so-called "Slomiansky Law" would add an additional five key committee votes for coalition parties by allowing one minister in each party to turn over their Knesset seat to the next person in the party list.
At the close of the meeting, which was attended by Itzik, National Union Faction chairman Ya'akov Katz, Hadash chairman Muhammad Barakeh, Meretz
chairman Haim Oron, and Balad chairman Jamal Zahalkah, opposition leaders and MKs took the Knesset podium in order to launch a series of one-minute speeches all against the government.
After the final speech, delivered by Itzik, opposition MKs rose from their seats, and left the plenum in boycott of the government's measures.
"Have mercy on Israeli democracy," called out Rivlin as they left. "Don't stand up easily and leave the Knesset."
Likud representatives said that "the embarrassing behavior of the opposition disgraced IDF widows, elderly people (both of whom were in the visitors'
galleries) and the entire Knesset. They should learn quickly what a statesmanlike opposition is."
And, said Itzik, the boycott - a word she said she preferred not to use - was merely the first step in a struggle that organizers said they were drawn
in to "against their will."
Источник: JPost.com
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