Coalition fails to advance family reunification bill

Opposition decries vote on fast day • Labor’s Kariv named to head Knesset Law Committee

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new coalition suffered a blow on Sunday, when it failed to pass a vote assigning a committee to legislate the controversial family reunification bill.

The coalition wanted to assign the bill to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, where it could have passed easily, because there are fewer Arab representatives. But a simple vote in the Knesset Arrangements Committee to assign a committee for the bill was postponed, because there was no majority.

MK Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) led opposition MKs in chanting “cowards” over and over again after the delay in the vote was announced. Sources in the coalition said another attempt to advance the bill would take place on Monday.

The opposition initially protested the vote happening on the fast dayof the 17th of Tamuz, but they decided against boycotting the vote.

MK Yariv Levin (Likud), coordinator of the opposition, sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) complaining about the government’s decision.

“A discussion on such important topics that was deliberately scheduled on a fast day, without any attempt to reach agreements, [is an attempt to] prevent a proper public discussion on the matter,” he said.

The government also announced that two of the three deputies to the Knesset Speaker from the opposition will be given to members of right-wing parties, which upset Levin. The other one will go to the Joint List. He called this allocation “disproportionate.”

He also noted that the government intends to “unnecessarily” increase the number of committees and designate those positions to the opposition.

Most of the country is open, despite the fast day; coalition MKs argued that should be the case with the Knesset.

“The time has come for the State of Israel to get back on track,” head of the coalition MK Idit Silman (Yamina) and Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid) said “and if the opposition wants to continue harming the work of the Knesset and wants to silence the work we are doing for the people of Israel, that’s their decision.”

Silman received death threats for her and her children on Whatsapp on Sunday. They called her the daughter of a whore and said she should be a bereaved mother. She complained to the Knesset Guard and police.

The Arrangements Committee approved the formation of the powerful Knesset Law and Constitution Committee, which will be headed by Labor MK Gilad Kariv, who is a Reform rabbi.

Likud MK Shlomo Karhi called Kariv “a danger to Judaism” and accused the coalition of “selling out Judaism to the Reform.”