The new unity government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid will be brought to a vote of confidence and sworn in during a special session of the Knesset on Sunday, Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin announced Tuesday.
Yesh Atid MK Karin Elharrar will convene the Arrangements Committee she heads to determine the agenda for the session and try to change Levin’s decision that the Knesset session would only start at 4 p.m. and likely end late at night. Yesh Atid would rather it start first thing in the morning.
Lapid celebrated the setting of the date for the vote, tweeting: “It’s happening!”
He thanked Levin for setting the date for Sunday. The final date permitted by law was Monday.
“The unity government is launching for the benefit of the citizens of the State of Israel,” Lapid said.
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman also responded, tweeting: “It is happening soon. A government that will come to rebuild the economy, come to work, and come to make order is on the way here!”
Lapid and Bennett met with New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar at Sa’ar’s home in Tel Aviv on Tuesday to settle their final differences before Friday's deadline for coalition agreements to be submitted. Solutions had been found to disputes between New Hope MK Ze’ev Elkin and MKs further to the Left, they announced afterward.
Elkin’s objections included keeping Defense Minister Benny Gantz in charge of monitoring Palestinian building in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank and Labor MK Gilad Kariv, who is a Reform rabbi, possibly becoming Diaspora affairs minister.
Yamina MK Nir Orbach delivered his long-awaited announcement on Tuesday morning that he had decided to vote in favor of the new coalition led by Bennett alongside Lapid. He wrote a long Facebook post giving ideological reasons for joining the government, though his critics said the real reason was that he would be given a cabinet post.
Orbach is set to become community affairs minister, and Yamina MK Idit Silman is expected to be named coalition chairwoman.
The decisions of Orbach and Silman to back the new government guarantee that Bennett will have enough support to approve the government in the vote of confidence on Sunday.
There had been concern that without Orbach, the coalition would not have the narrow majority of 61 MKs required to form the government.
Coalition Chairman Miki Zohar (Likud) responded to Orbach’s decision, tweeting: “Bennett’s opportunism defeated ideology.”
While Orbach won support for his decision, the chairman of the right-wing Religious Zionist Party, Bezalel Smotrich, attacked him for his change of heart.
“I wanted to just write that he is a zero, but he is also a rude, arrogant liar and a pursuer of honor and political patronage positions, and if he had been given a reserved slot by us, he would have come immediately,” Smotrich said.
In response to both the positive and negative responses, rebel Yamina MK Amichai Chikli said: “I both regret and respect Orbach’s decision, and in my eyes, the insults (as opposed to criticism) toward him and the other members of Yamina serve no purpose.”
“Changing the government is one of the most important moments of truth in any democratic regime, both for the government and those who form public opinion,” he said.
At the same special session on Sunday, a vote will be held to replace Levin as Knesset speaker with Yesh Atid MK Mickey Levy.
Hadassah Brenner contributed to this report.•