In two stormy meetings, the Knesset Arrangements Committee passed two proposals on Monday to facilitate proceedings that will reject immunity from prosecution for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his criminal cases.
The committee voted to form the Knesset House Committee, even though it is normally only established after a government is formed. Other regular Knesset committees were created as well, pending approval by the Knesset plenum.
Likud faction head Miki Zohar and other coalition MKs left both meetings in anger, saying that the meetings were illegal, because Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein did not officially authorize them. But the committee’s legal adviser said the meetings were permitted.
Zohar and the other MKs shouted that the committee had become “a political circus.” He called for boycotting the proceedings in the plenum and the committees.
“Today 61 MKs decided to hijack the Knesset in the middle of an election recess,” Zohar said.
The proposal to form the House Committee passed along party lines by a vote of 16 to five after most of the representatives of Likud and its allies left the room.
When the vote took place, Likud MK Shlomo Karai said the House Committee should be called the “anyone but Bibi committee,” citing the slogan Likud has attributed to Blue and White.
But Meretz faction head Tamar Zandberg said it was Netanyahu himself who requested that the Knesset deal with his immunity and forming the other committees would enable important issues like education and health to be dealt with that will help the public.
The committee authorized that decisions on immunity would be made in the Knesset House Committee without Edelstein being able to interfere.
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