Incoming coalition’s 1st legislative blitz begins Monday as Levin takes speakership
Parties will seek to quickly pass 3 bills — to expand Ben Gvir’s authority over police, put a Religious Zionism minister in the Defense Ministry and enable Deri to join government
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel
The incoming government’s first legislative volley is set to be launched on Monday, with a change of the outgoing government’s Knesset speaker. The swap will enable rapid voting on a suite of bills to rearrange and in some cases expand ministerial authorities, as well as to cement appointments agreed upon by Likud and its coalition partners — steps that are vital for the expected new coalition to be sworn in and take office.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s close confidant MK Yariv Levin will be appointed temporarily to the Knesset speakership to chaperone the process, the party announced Sunday night. He is expected to take on a ministerial role once a government is sworn in.
Sources close to the issue say preliminary voting is expected to begin Monday on three bills that are key to the makeup of the next government: a bill to expand powers for far-right incoming national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir; a bill to enable the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party to place a minister in charge of Israel’s West Bank building policy; and a bill that will clear Shas leader Aryeh Deri’s path to the interior and health ministries, despite his current suspended sentence for tax fraud.
Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, as well as Religious Zionism and Shas, are said to have set these policy changes as preconditions for swearing in the new government, and with just nine days left for Netanyahu’s mandate to form the next government, Likud must move fast.
Originally set to have expired on Sunday night, Netanyahu’s deadline was extended this weekend to December 21 by President Isaac Herzog. Once Netanyahu informs Herzog that he has clinched a governing majority, the Knesset speaker must call a swear-in vote within seven days, potentially stretching finalization to the end of December.
Swapping the current Yesh Atid party Knesset speaker Mickey Levy with Likud’s Levin is the first step to passing this legislative blitz, as it will allow Likud and its hardline coalition partners to control the Knesset’s legislative agenda. The Netanyahu-led Knesset bloc — his Likud, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism, and the far-right Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit and Noam parties — won 64 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in the November 1 elections.
With this firmly in hand, the expedited legislative process is expected to take as little as a week. On Monday, the Knesset’s Arrangements Committee is expected to create committees necessary for discussing and preparing the bills.
The bills will be brought on Monday for their preliminary readings. After being passed through this stage, they will move to committee to be prepared for their so-called first reading — technically their second vote — likely on Wednesday. After their first readings, they move back to committee in preparation for their second and third readings. Often conducted together, these may happen next Monday. Once past their third readings, the bills become law.
The three bills
If Ben Gvir’s legislation passes, the MK, who is set to take over the police ministry from center-left Labor minister Omer Barlev, will be granted radically expanded powers over the police, according to the submitted bill. A Channel 12 news report described the scope of authority granted under the proposal as unprecedented. This will include placing the police and its commissioner under political control and giving Ben Gvir the ability to dictate police policy, which the commissioner will need to enact.
Specifically, the bill adds language that the “Israel Police will be under the authority of the government” and “the police commissioner will be under the authority of the government and subordinate to the minister.”
Currently, the commissioner is not legally subordinate to the minister. As such, the commissioner generally determines police policy and may go to the minister for the okay on sensitive issues.
The changes will also grant Ben Gvir — himself convicted multiple times in the past of supporting a terror organization and racist incitement — the ability to determine general policy on investigations and pressing charges, although he will not be able to involve himself directly in investigations.
As such, Ben Gvir would have the ability to hold back enforcement of specific infractions (for example: not prosecuting Jews who break the sensitive status quo to pray on Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount).
Ben Gvir’s chief of staff, Chanamel Dorfman, declined to answer when asked Saturday whether Ben Gvir would use his expected new powers to enable Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. Ben Gvir has long pressed for Israel to flex its sovereignty on the sacred site, a key holy site for Muslims and a source of perpetual tensions with Palestinians.
Under the current status quo, all can visit but only Muslims may pray on the Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif. Dorfman and Ben Gvir have called the policy racist against Jews.
Upon submitting the bill to the Knesset on Thursday, Ben Gvir said it was “an important day for democracy,” echoing the Likud-led bloc’s line that the essence of democracy is for “sovereignty” to lie with the people’s elected representatives.
The same logic has been used to push a judicial reform plan that would weaken checks and balances on political power.
Several unsourced Hebrew media outlets on Friday reported that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara will not defend the bill if and when it is challenged in the High Court of Justice. She has not made any official comment. In a television interview Saturday evening, Ben Gvir said he was “deeply disappointed” by the reports.
In contrast, Baharav-Miara is said unlikely to oppose a bill aimed at legalizing Shas leader Deri’s appointment to the interior and health ministries. He is also slated to rotate into the finance ministry in about two years, succeeding Religious Zionism’s Bezalel Smotrich.
Deri is currently serving a suspended sentence tied to a recent tax fraud conviction. The law disqualifies candidates serving ongoing prison sentences from being ministers, though it is vague on whether this refers to suspended sentences as well. Shas’s legislation would clarify the law to mean custodial sentences only, clearing the way for Deri.
In addition to stints heading the economy, periphery, and religious services ministries, Deri has several times served as interior minister, most recently from 2016 to 2021. From 2000 to 2002, he served a 22-month prison sentence for taking a bribe during a previous posting at the Interior Ministry.
Smotrich’s defense responsibilities
The third major bill expected to be brought Monday will enable Smotrich to place an independent minister from his party within the defense ministry, to oversee planning and construction policy within the West Bank’s Area C, home to all Jewish settlements and many Palestinians.
In addition to overseeing planning and building approvals for Jewish settlement and Palestinian homes in Area C, the appointed Religious Zionism minister — likely Smotrich himself — will also insert himself into appointing generals in charge of Israel’s civil policy toward the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Currently, the general in charge of the Civil Administration is appointed by the IDF chief of staff, and the more senior general in charge of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories is appointed by the defense minister, upon recommendation by the chief of staff.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Sunday that changing the chain of command will disrupt current processes and may lead to confusion in the sensitive Area C.
The appointment of the Religious Zionism minister will create “two separate workflows,” such that “the right hand won’t know what the left is doing,” Gantz said to Army Radio.
Gantz’s defense ministry director-general, Amir Eshel, echoed the comments, telling Army Radio that it would be a challenge to coordinate the work of the IDF, the Civil Administration, and the West Bank division of the Border Police, responsibility for the last of which is planned to be shifted to Ben Gvir. Currently, all three are under the IDF chief of staff and to an extent, the defense minister.
Smotrich’s Religious Zionism stalwartly supports Jewish settlement and annexation in the West Bank. Smotrich was in 2005 arrested by the Shin Bet on suspicion of planning a violent protest against the then-ongoing disengagement from Gaza.
Likud ministerial flux
Planned coalition jobs within Likud itself are still in flux, including the role of speaker. Levin is temporarily slotting in to take the role and fast-track legislation while other jobs sort out within the party, and is expected to resign the post shortly before the government swears in, in order to take up a ministerial appointment.
Leading candidates for the permanent speaker job are MKs David Amsalem and Ofir Akunis, although additional MKs have pushed to be considered.
One of Likud’s more brash parliamentarians, former minister Amsalem caught headlines in June for saying that once Likud return to power, they would “run over” political opponents and “shatter the bones of the left.”
Addressing current Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, Amsalem said then that “if Levy took me out seven times a day, I will take him out 15 times.”
