Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s rotation agreement with Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid will come to a vote in the Knesset this week in a key challenge for their coalition.
The cannabis decriminalization bill, which was postponed two weeks ago, will also be a challenge for the coalition.
Bennett’s coalition decided for the first time on Sunday to support a bill sponsored by an opposition MK.
The bill, sponsored by Likud MK Keren Barak, would automatically give heirs an apartment when one spouse murders the other, instead of letting the murderer keep half.
The coalition voted for the bill in the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. The bill was initiated by Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata (Blue and White), but ministers cannot submit bills, and Barak’s is the only name on the bill.
Several other bills sponsored by the opposition were voted down or postponed, including a bill sponsored by Likud MK Keti Shitrit that cracks down on suicide and another sponsored by United Torah Judaism MK Yisrael Eichler that would lower the electoral threshold from 3.25 to 1.5%.
Fights between the coalition and opposition on the makeup of Knesset committees continued on Sunday.
The Knesset House Committee voted on Sunday to split the Knesset Labor and Social Affairs Committee and the Interior Committee.
The original Labor and Social Affairs Committee will be headed by Labor MK Efrat Rayten. But a new health committee will branch off and be chaired by Idit Silman (Yamina).
The Interior Committee will be headed by Ra’am (United Arab List) Party MK Saeed Alharomi and will be split in three. One new committee on public security will be chaired by Merav Ben-Ari (Yesh Atid). A committee on religious affairs will be headed by MK Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beytenu).
The legal advisers of the Knesset, the House Committee and the Labor and Social Affairs Committee all opposed the moves.
The splits passed unanimously because opposition MKs boycotted the vote.
The committee voted later to create new committees on the rights of children, headed by MK Michal Shir (New Hope); on foreign workers, chaired by MK Ibtisam Mara’ana-Menuhin (Labor); on drug and alcohol addiction, led by Labor faction head Ram Shefa; on public petitions, led by MK Yael Ron Ben-Moshe (Blue and White); and on Israel’s gas resources, led by Meretz MK Mossi Raz.
Meanwhile, the cabinet approved the appointments of Yisrael Beytenu MK Eli Avidar as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Meretz MK Yair Golan as deputy economy minister.
Following the swearing in of Avidar, he will quit the Knesset via the Norwegian Law that enables ministers to resign from the parliament and be replaced by the next candidates on their party list. If he quits the cabinet, he can return to the Knesset at his replacement’s expense.
The new MK will be veteran journalist Sharon Roffe Ofir, who is the deputy mayor of Kiryat Tivon, a suburb of Haifa.
