Ben Gvir apologizes to Netanyahu, Bismuth for forcing them to attend Knesset vote
Far-right minister says he ‘did some soul-searching,’ was wrong to compel PM to rush from hospital after surgery, Likud MK to leave shiva; but also pledges to continue voting against coalition
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir apologized on Saturday evening for not offering offsets to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, forcing them to appear for a vote on a critical budget-related bill last week.
At the same time, Ben Gvir pledged to continue to vote against the coalition in the Knesset.
Due to Ben Gvir’s decision to vote against the bill, Netanyahu was forced to leave the hospital less than two days after undergoing prostate surgery to cast his vote, while Bismuth had to interrupt the shiva — a seven-day mourning period — for his late mother.
Netanyahu went against his doctors’ recommendation to cast his vote in the Knesset and returned to the hospital afterward.
“We will continue to vote according to our principles until a solution is found regarding preventing the closure of police stations, civil defense squads, and the cuts in the salaries of police officers, prison guards, and all of Israel’s national security forces,” Ben Gvir said in a statement.
The far-right leader has been voting against the coalition over his demand for a larger budget for the police force, which he oversees as national security minister.
“At the same time, I did some soul-searching on Shabbat and realized that I was wrong when I saw the prime minister and Boaz in the plenum, and we did not offset them,” he continued.
“I apologize to the prime minister and my friend Boaz Bismuth. From now on, we will offset the prime minister until he fully recovers, God willing.”
In a statement last Tuesday evening, Likud said that it had “requested that MK Boaz Bismuth be offset against an Otzma Yehudit MK and was answered negatively.”
The process of giving the coalition a pass by allowing it to retain the same majority margin via an offset for absent government lawmakers is a common, but not required, gesture in the Knesset, frequently arranged between the coalition and opposition for lawmakers who are ill or have pressing social engagements, family commitments, and so on.
The bill that Netanyahu and Bismuth had to vote on cleared its third plenum reading hours before an end-of-year deadline.
The law, which passed 59-58 with Netanyahu casting the decisive vote, allows the government to tax “trapped profits,” which are defined as gains earned by corporations and multinationals that are not distributed as dividends to shareholders but reinvested in business development, infrastructure, and research and development centers. Until now, such earnings were tax-exempt to encourage investment.
With every vote being critical, Netanyahu and his associates managed to convince Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen to defy Ben Gvir and vote with the coalition. In addition, Likud officials managed to head off opposition by two members of the United Torah Judaism’s Agudat Yisrael faction, with MKs Yisrael Eichler and Moshe Roth staying away rather than voting against the coalition, denying what would have been a rare victory to the opposition. UTJ’s Yaakov Tessler voted with the opposition.
