Coalition accused of shuttering small businesses to justify limits on protests
Opposition MKs say cabinet left out clause allowing up to 10 people in an office because it would have undermined ’emergency’ status used to curb anti-PM rallies
Opposition lawmakers on Friday accused the coalition of shuttering small businesses to justify new emergency regulations that grant the government authority to limit the protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The accusations came after the Knesset’s Constitution Law and Justice Committee late Thursday night authorize the government’s emergency regulations to limit crowding. The new restrictions went into effect at midnight Thursday and will remain in force at least until October 7.
The new rules bar would-be demonstrators from gathering more than 1 kilometer from their homes and limit protests to groups of 20 people. The law also prohibits indoor prayers at synagogues and bans people from visiting others’ sukkahs over the upcoming week-long Sukkot holiday, which begins on Friday night.
During the session Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked, Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer, and others said they were shocked to learn that small businesses were also included among gatherings the emergency regulations aimed at limiting.
The ban for small businesses came despite regulations allowing for up to 10 people to gather inside of a building, deeply angering the opposition lawmakers at the committee.
Shaked, a former justice minister, accused the coalition lawmakers of scapegoating small business owners to justify the use of emergency regulations to limit protests.
“The small businesses are not being allowed to operate because it’s clear that if they had approved that, it would have legally brought down [the legitimacy] for a ‘special state of emergency’ allowing for demonstrations to be restricted,” Shaked said during the committee meeting.
While proponents of the restrictions say that they are intended to curb Israel’s rising curve of coronavirus infections, organizers involved in the anti-Netanyahu protest movement of the past three months have vociferously opposed the new regulations, saying that they violate their freedom to protest, and opposition MKs have accused the coalition of skewing COVID-related restrictions in an effort to thwart the demonstrations.
During a Channel 12 interview on Friday evening, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana (Likud) was asked to explain the inclusion of small businesses in the regulations, while also being accused of “obsessively” focusing on protests.
“Do you know who is obsessively dealing with protests all of the time? Blue and White,” Ohana responded, without addressing the decision made by his colleagues at the Knesset hearing a day before.
Despite serving together in a unity coalition, Likud and Blue and White have butted heads regularly in recent months over the ongoing protests against Netanyahu’s corruption charges and his government’s handling of the pandemic.
Likud officials have claimed that the outdoor gatherings can cause the virus to spread and have moved to have them curbed, while Blue and White has pushed back against limiting the democratic right too broadly.
The sides agreed to advance emergency regulations and legislation, with Blue and White getting on board, apparently wary of picking a fight over the issue of protests that would have stalled the implementation of other restrictions health officials deem crucial to curbing the virus as daily new COVID-19 case numbers have climbed to 9,000 on two recent days.
According to the Health Ministry figures released Friday morning, 7,639 new infections were confirmed Thursday, a day after a record 9,021 new cases were confirmed.
Another 671 were recorded after midnight, with the number of COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began rising to 255,771.
No new deaths were recorded overnight, with the national toll remaining at 1,622.
According to the ministry, there were 70,660 active cases, with 807 people in serious condition, including 196 on ventilators. Another 268 were in moderate condition and the rest had mild or no symptoms.
The Health Ministry said that 62,248 tests were performed Thursday, 12.3 percent of which came back positive, below the 13-15% daily positive test rates recorded over the past week.
