The Knesset plenum on Monday approved a new anti-defection bill that will make it harder for rebel lawmakers to splinter off from their factions, handing Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to be their first legislative win in the first session of the newly inaugurated 25th Knesset.
The new bill repeals a provision passed only last year by the outgoing government that allowed four members of a faction to break off into a separate faction without facing any political sanctions.
Now lawmakers who wish to part ways with their mother faction will have to muster the support of at least a third of its members.
This grants increased stability to Netanyahu, whose Likud party is the largest faction in the Knesset with 32 seats in the 120-seat Israeli legislature and has been marred by growing internal squabbling as the incoming leader's fellow party members believe he is making too far-reaching concessions to appease his prospective coalition partners.
The controversial proposal that would shift authorities from the police commissioner to prospective National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir will make its way to a vote tomorrow for the first time. While Ben-Gvir inserted some stipulations since the bill was first announced, critics still feel this would lead to hasty, uncalculated proceedings.
Additionally, tomorrow the Knesset is primed to further vote on the Deri-Smotrich law, which would allow anyone to be appointed minister as long as any criminal conviction against him does not include actual prison time, thus paving the way for both MK Bezalel Smotrich and MK Aryeh Deri to serve simultaneously on the same portfolio.
Before the noon session, outgoing PM Yair Lapid attacked the incoming government by repeating the expression "bite me" which has gone viral on Israeli social media. "That's what the new government is telling Israeli citizens," he said. "Don't like the new government? Bite me. Are you employed? Bite me. Do you send your kids to public schools? Bite me. Don't like what the government is doing with your money? Bite me. Don't know why half the ministers in the new government don't send their kids to fight for their country but yours have to? Bite me."
All throughout Lapid's impassioned attack, Likud members could be heard heckling him and saying that's why the elections were held in the first place and that Lapid should be ashamed of himself.
Lapid further stated that "that's what they've always wanted. A government with no accountability. They have no interest in co-existence, the rule of law, maintaining adequate financial handling of the state's coffers, and keeping a balance between freedom and security. All the values have always been the hallmark of a functional state of Israel.
"Politics functions like a wheel. One second you're up in the coalition, and before you know it you're down with the opposition. You tell the citizens of Israel 'bite me', and then the elections come along and then they'll be saying the same thing to you," Lapid concluded.