Ministers in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government clashed over the weekend over bills that would prevent former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government.
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar (New Hope) told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Friday that in the Knesset’s winter session, he would pass bills preventing a candidate under criminal indictment from forming a government and limiting a prime minister to eight years or two terms in office.
“We have already seen that when the country is run by a prime minister under indictment, personal interests are preferred,” said Sa’ar, who added that if passed, the bills would take effect after the next election.
Sa’ar told the newspaper that he was advancing the bills with Bennett’s support. But Bennett’s No. 2 in Yamina, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, told Sa’ar on Friday that she opposed the bills.
“There are parties in the coalition that wanted to put anti-Netanyahu bills in the coalition agreement. I didn’t let it happen and my view has not changed,” Shaked told Channel 12 on Saturday night.
Labor leader and Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli said last month that she opposes legislation aimed at one person, even if it is Netanyahu.
“I would rather stop thinking about Netanyahu and focus on helping the citizens of this country,” she said when asked by The Jerusalem Post about such bills at a Labor faction meeting.
Sa’ar told the Post ahead of the March election that bills limiting Netanyahu could not be applied retroactively to that election but he would consider passing it for the next one.
“You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” he said.
Likud officials accused Sa’ar of acting out of revenge against Netanyahu and trying to save himself politically. Polls have found that if another election were held, Sa’ar’s New Hope would not cross the electoral threshold.
Likud’s MK Galit Distal Atbaryan scorned Sa’ar on Twitter.
“Sa’ar is afraid, and with good reason,” she said. “He knows fully well that the support for him and his artificial party is close to zero, despite the pampering media coverage. That’s why he’s trying to lower the electoral threshold. That’s why he’s cooking up a personal, anti-democratic bill. That’s why he’ll continue forever fearfully serving the legal system and never the public.”
Shaked issued a threat to the government in a weekend interview with the Makor Rishon newspaper. “If the government does something ideological that I would see as harsh, we won’t be part of it,” she said. “For instance, if the American administration demanded a freeze in Judea and Samaria, there would not be a government.”
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.