The coalition deal between Likud’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White’s Benny Gantz passed by a vote of 72 to 40 in its first reading by the Knesset on Thursday. The vote is meant to allow the changes to the Basic Law that were implicated by the unity deal. In order for the rotation government to move forward the bill will have to pass through the Knesset. The final readings are expected to take place next week. Members of the new coalition said quickly passing the changes and endorsing the new government was critical to exit the current crises. The government has been at a more than 17-month stalemate and the country is still surfacing from the coronavirus spread. Opposition MKs slammed the deal as constitutionally problematic and putting cushy ministerial jobs over the public good. “For a month, Netanyahu has been negotiating and there is no word about the coronavirus in the coalition deal,” Yesh Atid-Telem leader Yair Lapid said in the plenum. “The Israeli economy is coming apart, and he is busy with who will get which portfolio, who will appoint judges and who will be in charge of the state prosecutors, and small businesses will get nothing but unending bureaucracy.”
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