The feeling in the air of new elections coming, along with a firm right-wing majority in the Knesset, is leading far-right government coalition MKs to try to achieve everything they can when the Knesset returns from its Passover recess in six weeks. Coalition MKs will flood the house with controversial bills pushing the right’s agenda. Far-right MKs have staked out six areas for their main legislative efforts in the present Knesset term: Acting against supporters of boycotting the settlements, restricting organizations identified with the Left, legislation against the Arab-Palestinian community in Israel, far-reaching changes in the media sector, laws constraining the Supreme Court and the annexation of the occupied Palestinian West Bank settlement Ma’aleh Adumim.
MK Dov Khenin (Photo: Al Ittihad)
Another bill on the agenda, sponsored by 16 MKs, would prevent the Supreme Court from ruling laws to be unconstitutional, and only allow the court to warn of a contradiction between a new law and existing laws; and a separate bill would end tax deductions for donations to institutions that accuse Israel of war crimes.
In the face of the broad legislative activities of right-wing MKs, the Zionist parliamentary opposition is much less aggressive: Zionist Union and Yesh Atid are constantly trying to lure right voters, and so are steering clear of legislative battles that could paint them as “leftists” – as supporters of boycotts, civil liberties and, peace with the Palestinians or against occupation crimes.
“More parties feel today that the winds of public opinion are blowing to the right and they do not want to stand against those winds,” says communist MK Dov Khenin (Hadash – Joint List). “In the previous Knesset, when they passed the ‘Governability Law,’ the opposition put up a fight and held three days of alternative discussions. Today it happens less. True, the opposition had a nice achievement when all of them took a stand against the impeachment law, but a great number of times MKs in Yesh Atid and Zionist Union split up, support or are absent from votes on such laws,” he added.
