Opposition leader Yair Lapid’s number two in Yesh Atid, MK Orna Barbivai, will head the Knesset’s temporary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to a proposal that will come to the Knesset Arrangements Committee on Monday morning.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc has a majority on the committee to approve Barbivai, who will be the first woman ever to head the sensitive committee that oversees Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on security issues and foreign affairs.
According to a proposal that will come to a vote, United Torah Judaism leader Moshe Gafni of the pro-Netanyahu bloc will control the temporary Knesset Finance Committee.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc will bring another proposal to the committee to appoint two deputy Knesset speakers for the bloc. Yariv Levin of Likud would remain the speaker, with one deputy from his party. The fifth deputy speaker would come from the Ra’am (United Arab List), which is not in either bloc.
Arrangements Committee head Miki Zohar (Likud) decided to enable the proposals to pass, despite fights between the two sides that ended in a stalemate the last time the committee convened last Monday night.
Levin’s spokesman denied an Army Radio report that the Knesset Speaker rejected an offer to become prime minister for a year in a rotation with Netanyahu.
The report said Netanyahu’s associates had offered him the post in an effort to woo into the coalition Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope faction, which opposes Netanyahu remaining prime minister but has no problem with the government being led by another figure from the Likud.
The spokesman said “Levin had nothing to reject, because he had received no such offer.”
Maiden speeches are set to be delivered this week by controversial new MKs Itamar Ben-Gvir (Religious Zionist Party), Rabbi Gilad Kariv (Labor) and Ibtisam Mara’ana (Labor).
Ben-Gvir’s speech will be boycotted by MKs from Labor and Meretz, Kariv’s by Shas and United Torah Judaism MKs and Mara’ana’s by the Religious Zionist Party, which tried to get her disqualified from running for the Knesset.