How do MKs pass the time in the plenum? Some of the government's most senior ministers brought books to read.
By LAHAV HARKOVFinance Minister Yair Lapid reading 370(photo credit: Noa Amir )
Voting on the state budget is not fun for MKs, to say the least.There are no speeches to interrupt with clever comments, just hour after hour of responding to manual roll call votes called by the opposition to intentionally drag out the legislative process as long as possible and exhaust the coalition.So, how do MKs pass the time in the plenum? Some of the government's most senior ministers brought books to read.Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu read a biography of his idol, former UK prime minister Winston Churchill in English, occasionally taking notes.Although Economy Minister Naftali Bennett has been known to quote Theodor Roosevelt, he chose a different former US president to read up - in English - on during budget votes: Abraham Lincoln.Meanwhile, Finance Minister Yair Lapid chose a book by a fellow MK, Labor's Nachman Shai.Earlier this year, Shai published Media War: Reaching for Hearts and Minds, a book, about Israeli public diplomacy in times of conflict.Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz delved into "The Wallet and the Sword," a book by former justice minister Daniel Friedmann on the complex relationship between the judiciary and the executive and legislative branches of Israeli government.
