Knesset members who dream of becoming ministers, deputy ministers, and/or receiving massive budgets on behalf of their constituencies one day, are ow waking up with added vigor amid a coalition in deep crisis, paralyzed in the Knesset without a minimal majority for passing important laws and decisions.
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Spring is indeed upon us, and along with the blooming flowers vibrantly painting our fields, certain MKs, who in the wake of former Coalition Chairwoman Idit Silman's decision to resign and join the Likud party in exchange for some assurance or another, can sense that now is their time to "blossom" – with threats, sanctions, or declarations of freezing their coalition membership.
The current Knesset has provided several such examples. MK Amichai Chikli (elected on the Yamina ticket) said back in May of last year that he would oppose a Bennett-Lapid rotation government, and therefore voted against the government's formation. Ever since then, he has allowed himself to vote in the Knesset as he sees fit. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett asked that he be labeled a defector (in other words, prohibiting him from joining any other faction in the current Knesset), while representatives of right-wing parties are already courting him.
Yamina MKs Nir Orbach and Abir Kara, meanwhile, have also been immensely empowered by Silman's resignation. Likud officials are ready to embrace them and give them almost anything they want if they support a no-confidence motion against the government. These two MKs, who still haven't proven their parliamentary chops, are already strutting around the Knesset with their chests puffed out.
The situation is similar in the Ra'am party. The "Shura Council" – the Islamic Movement's council of sages – decided Sunday to suspend its membership in the coalition and the Knesset for two weeks over recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The decision lacks any practical significance because the Knesset is in recess until May 9.
Beneath the surface, however, several Ra'am MKs (including chairman Mansour Abbas, Walid Taha, and Mazen Ghanem) are hinting that due to the events on the Temple Mount, the party should reconsider its partnership in the coalition and support for the government. It's safe to assume they will ultimately fall in line after Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Bennett offer them another generous benefits package.
None of this is unprecedented by a long shot. For instance, during the "dirty trick" affair in 1990, when Shimon Peres was about to present his new government and two Haredi MKs (Eliezer Mizrahi and Avraham Verdiger), who were going to support that government, "went absent" in exchange for promises – dashing Peres' dream at the last second.
In 1995, when the government headed by Yitzhak Rabin lacked the necessary majority to pass the Oslo B agreement, he was able to "convince" three Mks who had resigned from the Tzomet party to form the Yeud faction (Gonen Segev, Alex Goldfarb, and Esther Salmovitz) to join the coalition. In return, Segev (who is currently in jail after being convicted of spying for Iran) was given the energy portfolio and made a cabinet member, and Goldfarb was appointed deputy minister of the Construction and Housing Ministry.
To change the current situation, whereby MKs take liberties to do whatever they want, we must change the law and stipulate clearly that elected officials must obey their party's decision instead of "freelancing" – extraordinary circumstances notwithstanding.
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