Here’s a record for you: on Monday at the Knesset plenum, the right-wing opposition parties voted against regulating the legal status of Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria, while the left-wing, staunch anti-settlements parties voted in favor.
Later that night, Yamina rogue MK Idit Silman risked her political future by voting with the opposition against the appointment of her party member Matan Kahana to the post of Minister of Religious Services, which eventually led to a second mega-failure for the Lapid-Bennett coalition.
The vote on the settlements wasn’t a case of opposition-edging-out-coalition kind of failure, it was a whopping 58 to 52 win for the opposition. It’s difficult to envision Bennett and Lapid recovering from this one. The second loss hurt even more, seeing as it was delivered exclusively by MK Silman, whose vote to keep Kahana in his humiliating role as Deputy Minister in his own office led to a 55-55 vote. She could have helped him retake his old post and chose not to.
To remind you, Yamina took advantage of the parliamentary procedure known as the “Norwegian Law,” whereby a party’s serving minister resigns from the Knesset in favor of the next party member on the election slate. Should the minister wish to resume his or her role as MK, the Knesset must vote on whether or not he may retain his post as Minister. At some point, Yamina Chairman Naftali Bennett lost his faith in his faction’s MK Yom Tov Kalfon and forced his resignation. Kahana became an MK again, and until the Knesset voted on his reappointment as Minister of Religious Services, he took the post of Deputy Minister of Religious Services, from which he hoped to graduate Monday night. But his former ally, MK Silman, botched his plans by voting to keep him as deputy (a twist on Bob Marley’s 1973 hit, I Shot the Sheriff).
Now Bennett must decide what to do about Silman’s in-your-face betrayal, even as he is playing his violin over the ruins of a burning Rome, Nero style. He will probably take away her position as Chair of the Knesset Health Committee. But will he declare her a rogue MK, as he did regarding Yamina’s other notorious rogue MK, Amichai Chikli? If she’s declared rogue, Silman, like Chikli, would not be allowed to join the slate of an existing political party, such as Likud or Religious Zionism. If she wants to run come next elections (and they’re coming, almost no one is doubting it), she would have to start her own, brand-new party.
One does need to ask, what exactly did Bennett and Kahana do to Silman to deserve her fury, or was she perhaps taking revenge on behalf of the expelled Yom Tov Kalfon?
A bitter and angry Kahana said after his humiliating loss Monday night: “Silman today proved with her actions that she does not see herself as part of the Yamina faction and I assume it will have consequences in the future.”
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “Silman, you are a champion!”
The sad thing about the two votes was that Bennett and his allies at the top, Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Gideon Saar (New Hope) were convinced they had to pressure the left-wing coalition parties as well as the Islamist party Ra’am. They hoped against hope that Silman, who would want to stay at the helm of her committee, would abstain. She didn’t. She voted nay.
At this point, most of the Ra’am MKs cannot be counted on for most votes, so the most Bennet-Lapid can expect are about 55 votes, give or take three. Bennett has just lost his fourth close adviser, Matan Sidi (PM’s Spokesperson Follows 3 Others in Exit from Bennett’s Office), he can barely count on the support of four members of his own faction, and the only thing keeping him in office is the fact that, according to the coalition agreements with alternate PM Yair Lapid, should the right-wing parties abandon ship, Lapid gets to serve as PM at the helm of a caretaker government through the elections and the post-election negotiations.
A cynical joke that was popular during Israel’s dark recession days of 1966, suggested a sign at the country’s international airport read: The last one out please turn off the lights.
It’s getting there for the PM from Ra’anana.
