MK Miki Zohar, announced that MKs from Likud and legislators from parties in the current caretaker government would not come to the meetings and would not vote.
By GIL HOFFMANMK Miki Zohar, 2019.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
The Blue and White Party issued sharp criticism on Sunday of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to have his Likud party and its allies boycott the Knesset House Committee’s deliberations on Netanyahu’s request for immunity from prosecution in his criminal cases.The head of the Likud faction, MK Miki Zohar, announced that MKs from Likud and legislators from parties in the current caretaker government would not come to the meetings and would not vote. They will also not participate in a special session of the Knesset plenum on Tuesday to create the House Committee.“The opposition is behaving in a shameful and heavy-handed manner, using the coincidental majority achieved by Blue and White,” Zohar tweeted. “Their behavior goes against all the rules there have been since the Knesset was founded, and this is not our path.”Zohar said that coalition MKs coming to the meetings would be tantamount to participating in Blue and White’s “anyone but Bibi” campaign.Blue and White responded that the decision was not made by Zohar but by Netanyahu himself, who initially wanted the Knesset to deal with his immunity request, but changed his mind after it became clear that there was a majority to request it.“It is unfortunate that the head of a transition government continues shaming the Knesset and the democratic regime by refusing to let his people participate in the deliberations on his request for immunity,” Blue and White said in a statement. “He requested immunity in an attempt to escape justice. He requested [a vote on] immunity, and he will receive it.”While a Likud official said the current boycott decision affected only Tuesday’s vote in the plenum, sources in the party said it was fair to surmise that the party’s strategy would continue during the House Committee’s deliberations on immunity that are set to start on Thursday. MKs must participate in half the meetings in order to be allowed to vote, and the Likud has not yet even submitted its list of MKs who will serve on the committee.MKs in Likud have been pressuring Netanyahu to rescind his immunity request, which has no chance of passing. Likud officials decided over the weekend not to rescind the request in order to make Blue and White look petty by proceeding with the immunity process, while Netanyahu looks serious by obtaining the achievements for Israel in US President Donald Trump’s new Middle East peace plan. But the decision could be overturned by Tuesday.Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman – whose shift against immunity gave Blue and White its majority – announced that his party would attend the proceedings on immunity and vote on the request.“If anyone really needs immunity, it is the public, from all the political tricks, public relations moves and political spin of the prime minister,” Liberman said.
Meretz faction chair Tamar Zandberg wrote that the decision to boycott the immunity proceedings was an admission of guilt by Netanyahu that he led the Knesset into a process that is shameful. She called on him to rescind his immunity request so the Knesset would not have to convene.
