The closing moves of the 25th Knesset, which came to its timely end last Friday, were representative of many of the mishaps that had accompanied its full four-year term of service.
The last two weeks of the 25th Knesset were devoted almost exclusively to a maximal possible passing of the legislation that made up the quid pro quo reached between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties.
The haredim were granted three legislative measures: Basic Law: Torah Study, a law that temporarily prevents haredim who shirk mandatory military service from being detained in custody until an acceptable conscription law for everyone is agreed upon; and a law canceling the kashrut reform passed by the previous government, which had limited the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over kashrut.
Netanyahu managed to avoid voting on all three of these laws (after making sure they would pass without his vote), thus suggesting that he doesn’t really believe in their necessity, per se, and that they are merely a tool to keep his current political bloc together.
The laws he had hoped to pass in return, with the votes of the haredi MKs, who are still allegedly part of his bloc but not part of his coalition, included a law to set up a political committee of inquiry, rather than a national commission of inquiry, to investigate the background of and responsibility for the outbreak of the horrific events of October 7, 2023; a law to weaken the position of the attorney-general; the communications law proposed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud), designed to weaken the anti-government media and strengthen pro-government media; and a law proposed by MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) to enable gender separation in MA and PhD degrees in higher education.
Netanyahu’s success with these laws was incomplete.
The law concerning the committee of inquiry has not been passed; the law to weaken the attorney-general was passed, but in a weaker form than that originally planned; the communications law was only partially passed, and the rest is left for future legislation.
The gender separation law in higher studies is not mandatory, and its implementation is left to the discretion of the institutions of higher education concerned.
Whether anything concrete will be achieved as a result of this problematic legislative effort will depend on the results of the October 27 elections.
If they result in the establishment of another all-right government or in a stalemate that will require another round of elections, Netanyahu will have achieved his goal of prolonging his premiership.
Should the opponents of the current government manage to form an alternative government, one can expect it to cancel or amend all the controversial new laws, or amendments to existing laws, that formed part of the crooked quid pro quo.
The Knesset’s broader legacy
Of course, we are speaking only of the last moves of the 25th Knesset. Let us remember that when it started its term, the 25th Knesset was engaged with Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial reform (or, as the opposition called it – his anti-democratic judicial revolution).
Levin’s main partner in the Knesset was the chairperson of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Simcha Rotman (Religious Zionism), whose aggressive and frequently undemocratic manner of running his committee was viewed as a symbol of the undermining of the Knesset’s status as a solid pillar of Israeli democracy.
Throughout the 25th Knesset’s term, the opposition was accused of being flaccid and ineffective in its confrontation of the government over the changes Levin sought to introduce in Israel’s legal system.
I believe this presentation of the facts is faulty because soon after the 2022 elections, the popularity of the government started to wane.
From the 64 Knesset seats the coalition parties won in the elections, which grew to 68 after Gideon Sa’ar’s party joined the coalition in September 2024, today’s opinion polls show it has fallen to around 52 seats.
The parliamentary reality (at least until several weeks ago) was that the opposition (Jewish plus Arab) commanded only 52 seats, and at least from a parliamentary perspective, this limited what the opposition could do in practical as opposed to verbal terms.
Nevertheless, the fact is that even though Levin managed to weaken the judiciary by preventing the selection of new judges and justices for over two years, refusing to recognize Justice Yitzhak Amit as president of the Supreme Court, and actively seeking to weaken the administration’s gatekeepers – (first and foremost Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara) – he has not managed to bring about the full reform/revolution he sought.
Again, the results of the approaching elections will, inter alia, determine whether Levin’s policy can or cannot be reversed for the benefit of Israel’s democratic system.
However, even if a new government emerges from the elections, certain reforms in Israel’s legal system will have to be introduced for the sake of unity and stability.
Undoubtedly, the war that followed the events of October 7 and has continued on-and-off for nearly three years also affected the mood and conduct of the outgoing Knesset.
Finally, something must be said about the human makeup of the 25th Knesset. Besides the haredi MKs, who seem to have lost contact with the basic existential realities and needs of the state of Israel and its society, the human makeup of the Likud parliamentary group also appears to have gone somewhat awry.
All parties occasionally have wacky members, who cause embarrassment to their parties, but in the 25th Knesset, the Likud appears to have collected an exorbitant number of such members.
These members have not only caused an undue amount of havoc to the smooth conduct of the Knesset’s work but have even convinced Netanyahu himself that they are electorally harmful.
Netanyahu appears to believe that the primaries for selecting the Likud’s Knesset list – traditionally a source of pride because of their democratic nature – must be given up completely, or at least partially.
He has convinced the Likud’s institutions to allow him to appoint up to eight candidates of his choice, side by side with those elected in primaries.
However, Netanyahu ought to admit that there were several problematic Likud MKs that he himself had upgraded in the primary process in the past.
These include three women MKs: Social Equality and the Advancement of the Status of Women Minister May Golan, and MKs Tally Gotliv, and Galit Distel Atbaryan – all three of whom are a frequent source of embarrassment to the Likud and are believed to drive away more moderate and reasonable right-wing voters.
All one can say is that hopefully the 26th Knesset will be less chaotic, less embarrassing, and more productive (in a positive sense) than the outgoing Knesset.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.
Source:
www.jpost.com
