Coalition stability in danger over conversion therapy bill
UTJ declares it will no longer cooperate with Gantz
THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2020
The stability of the coalition and its long-term chances of survival took another battering on Wednesday, as a severe crisis blew up when Blue and White voted with the opposition for a ban on gay conversion therapy.
This step invoked the ire of both the Likud and the United Torah Judaism Party, which said it was ceasing cooperation with Blue and White, and threatened to vote against coalition legislation.
UTJ also issued retaliatory legislation, introducing a bill to establish a mechanism for the Knesset to override decisions by the High Court of Justice, and to ban hametz, leavened produce, from hospitals over Passover, both of which Blue and White opposes.
The storm comes following another coalition dispute two weeks ago, when the Likud allowed its members to vote for an opposition proposal to create a commission of inquiry into judicial conflicts of interest, something that Blue and White saw as an attack on the judiciary and a violation of coalition agreements.
The Knesset approved on Wednesday afternoon the gay conversion ban legislation, introduced by the opposition Meretz Party, in a preliminary reading by 42 for and 36 against, with a number of coalition members from Blue and White, as well as Public Security Minister Amir Ohana of the Likud, voting in support, and in opposition to the government’s position.
The victory for the opposition created pandemonium in the Knesset plenum, with ultra-Orthodox MKs raucously 2 AV, 5780 denouncing Blue and White from the gallery, and Likud and Blue and White ministers trading threats from the podium.
“You are not honest, not fair, and not gentlemen. You should have at least informed us in the morning. This is impudence and brazenness. You are completely leading us to elections,” stormed Cyber and National Digital Matters Minister David Amsalem in comments from the podium.
The minister also got to the heart of the political fight, asserting that Blue and White’s anger over the vote on the commission of inquiry for judicial conflicts of interest was unjustified.
“Why are you so angry? Because [of how] we voted regarding the conflict of interests for judges? Is it forbidden for the Knesset to discuss this?” asked Amsalem.
Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn said in response that he had fully coordinated with the various coalition party leaders and the prime minister before the vote.
Following the vote, UTJ held an emergency faction meeting and announced that although it would vote in favor of the coronavirus legislation, which is set to come to the plenum late Wednesday night, it viewed itself as “freed from coalition obligations,” in an implicit threat to vote against coalition legislation.
Senior UTJ MK Moshe Gafni then introduced the legislation on the High Court override and hametz in hospitals over Passover, while party chairman and Construction and Housing Minister Ya’acov Litzman denounced the
Likud’s management of the coalition.
The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party announced that it would not take part in votes at the Knesset plenum until further notice.
The legislation on conversion therapy, proposed by Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz and Labor MK Merav Michaeli, would take away the license of psychologists who employ the controversial practice, fine them and send them to jail for repeat offenses.
Similar attempts to ban conversion therapy in Israel have failed in the past.
The senior leadership of UTJ denounced Blue and White for voting in favor, saying that the bill would harm “the holiness of the family,” and the party will now likely punish the coalition in votes in the Knesset plenum as a result.
Litzman said Blue and White’s vote in favor of the bill was a blow to political cooperation with the party, but threatened the Likud as well, saying the ruling party must decide “if it knows how to manage the coalition or destroy itself politically.”
Gafni said that his party was “ceasing cooperation” with Blue and White because of its vote in favor of the bill, but hit out at the Likud, and at Ohana for voting in favor.
UTJ faction chairman MK Yitzhak Pindrus reiterated that the party was stopping “all cooperation with Blue and White from this moment,” and that the vote constitutes “a blatant violation of the coalition agreement.”
He was likely referring to the clause in UTJ’s coalition agreement with the Likud requiring that the status quo on religion and state be maintained, a clause that the ultra-Orthodox parties traditionally interpret very broadly.
Blue and White decided to support the bill shortly before the vote. “We promised and we upheld,” tweeted Defense Minister and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz following the vote. “Conversion therapy was born in sin and its place is outside of the law and the public norm. We will make sure that everyone, from every background and sexual orientation, in Israel will have free choice and security in their identity.”
Horowitz said after the vote that this is “amazing news for the Israeli public and the LGBTQ+ community at whole.”
“Today a historic change is beginning in Israel. I thank the MKs who voted in support of the freedom and equality in order to stop the horror of ‘conversion therapy,’ and [I thank] everyone who acted, initiated, wrote, shared and fought for the life of the LGBTQ+ community. You helped save lives today.”
Ohana, a member of the Likud, voted in support of the bill, while several Likud MKs absented themselves from the vote, not wanting to vote against it.
Separately, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved the so-called Big Coronavirus Bill for its final readings in the Knesset plenum, which were set to take place late Wednesday night.
The legislation gives the government the power to declare a state of emergency and to enact regulations that would have a broad impact on public and private life.
It also gives the Constitution Law and Justice Committee, as well as several other Knesset committees, the ability to reject these regulations within 24 hours of their issuance by the government.
Critically, however, in “extraordinary circumstances” the law would also allow the government to issue the regulations without giving the Knesset 24 hours to review them.
Furthermore, the law essentially bypasses the Knesset Coronavirus Committee established when the government was formed to review all such decisions.
Its chairwoman, Likud MK Yifat Shasha-Biton, has strongly asserted her committee’s right to review and reject government regulations and has come under withering fire from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his enforcers.
The new legislation will end