Likud blames Liberman for cameras bill falling

The Knesset voted 58 to zero in favor of putting cameras in polling stations in Tuesday’s election in a Knesset vote on Wednesday that was boycotted by Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and other opposition factions.

But the resolution did not pass, because Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon decided in advance of the vote that 61 MKs were required, in a ruling that was protested by Justice Minister Amir Ohana. All of the 60 coalition MKs attended, except for Shas leader Arye Deri and retiring Kulanu MK Roy Folkman.

Netanyahu blamed the vote on Liberman, who he accused of conspiring with Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid and Joint List head Ayman Odeh. Netanyahu came to the special Knesset session on the bill, asked where Liberman was, and said he was afraid to come.

“The cameras bill fell because of one man – Avigdor Lieberman – who joined Lapid, Gantz and the Arab parties to allow voter fraud,” Likud said in a statement after the vote. “This is the government that Gantz and Lapid will establish: a left-wing government with Lieberman, Ahmed Tibi and Ayman Odeh as government ministers. The only way to ensure a right-wing government is to vote Likud.”

Liberman tweeted that Netanyahu went to the Knesset “to put on a horror show.”

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein had Odeh forcibly removed from the session after Odeh physically confronted Netanyahu and put a phone camera directly in front of the prime minister’s face.

“Get out already, I’ve already heard your speeches,” Edelstein said as Odeh resisted being removed. Edelstein called Odeh’s behavior “shameful.”

In his speech, Netanyahu also attacked the heads of Blue and White. He said he did not know who was happier about rocket fire from Gaza that forced him to leave the stage at an Ashdod Likud campaign event on Tuesday night: Lapid and Gantz, or Hamas.

Lapid fiercely attacked Netanyahu in his speech at the Knesset session.

“In six days, we can get rid of him,” he said. “Not an ugly goodbye: a polite one, respectful. We’ll thank him and move on. It will be over. After two weeks, everyone will look around and see that life goes on. Children are going to school. Prices are coming down. The extremists and extortionists aren’t controlling our lives. Trump will be friends with the next prime minister, because that’s how it is. It’ll be clear that we can live without him. That it’s better without him.”

In a briefing for the press before the special Knesset session on the bill, Central Elections Committee director-general Orly Ades revealed that the committee had spent NIS 15 million on small body cameras that will be operated by official polling station overseers and secretaries.

Ades said that only those operating the committee’s cameras will be permitted to film inside. She said a party representative filming inside a polling station would be committing a crime.