Likud to kick Edelstein off Knesset defense panel after he votes for annexation bill

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party decided Wednesday to remove MK Yuli Edelstein from his seat on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after he voted in favor of a West Bank settlement annexation bill that was boycotted by the party, a spokesperson for the lawmaker and a coalition insider each independently confirmed to The Times of Israel.

Edelstein broke ranks to vote in favor, casting a decisive vote and helping the bill scrape by 25-24. In a statement, he said that he supported the measure because “Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our homeland is the order of the day” and called on “all Zionist factions to vote in favor.”

Edelstein was ousted as chairman of the powerful committee in July, after the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties quit the government over his proposed enlistment bill, which levied harsh sanctions on draft evaders. He was replaced by fellow Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, who is currently working on a new draft of the legislation.

According to the Ynet news site, Likud is concerned that Edelstein will vote against Bismuth’s bill in the committee.

After taking over the committee, Bismuth largely threw out Edelstein’s version of the bill  — which the Haredi parties were deeply critical of — and started over. He has said that he believes Israelis must “find the balance” between Torah study and military service and that Israel needs both soldiers and Torah students.

Responding to his imminent removal from the powerful committee, Edelstein stated that “the public already knows that my word is my word.”

“If my entire sin was that I stood up for the Land of Israel and voted in favor of applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, then I am proud of that. Just as I am proud that I prevented [Haredi draft] evasion and that I am fighting for genuine ultra-Orthodox conscription,” the veteran lawmaker said in a statement, using the biblical term for the West Bank.

“Even outside the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I will continue to fight for equal conscription and for the Land of Israel. Any such dismissal is a moral badge of honor for me. Anyone who thinks that this deters me is greatly mistaken,” he added.

Edelstein will be far from the first Likud MK to be removed from the committee for opposing coalition policies. In November last year, freshman MK Dan Illouz was replaced due to his public opposition to a bill intended to prevent draft dodgers from losing government daycare subsidies.

And in May, MK Amit Halevi was kicked out after he voted against a measure to extend the government’s ability to issue emergency call-up orders for IDF reservists. Halevi was later reinstated as an alternate member of the committee.

Asked for comment, firebrand MK Tally Gotliv, an alternate member of the committee on behalf of Likud, backed Edelstein’s ouster.

“Ultimately, the ruling party has coalition discipline. Fortunately, we were given the option not to vote against [the bill], but to abstain from voting. Yuli Edelstein, for political reasons, decided to vote against the party’s position,” she told The Times of Israel.

“He wanted to win political capital, and there is a sanction for that. The sanction is that he will not be on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee — and I received sanctions for much less than that, by the way,” Gotliv added.

Also reacting to Edelstein’s ouster, Yesh Atid MK and fellow committee member Moshe Tur-Paz said that the move shows Netanyahu “wants yes-men who will do what he says.”

The fact that Edelstein was removed, “supposedly because he voted in favor of sovereignty, indicates the true intentions of the Likud movement,” Tur-Paz told The Times of Israel.

“Netanyahu does not want MKs with independent positions in the Likud. He does not want people, God forbid, who maintain their values… who are not willing to vote in favor of the evasion law,” the opposition MK said.

“He wants yes-men who will do what he says. He is used to that. Unfortunately, Yuli Edelstein, an excellent committee member… has now been dismissed in order to continue the preparation of the evasion law,” Tuz-Paz added. “We will see in his place an MK who will become a yes-man and raise his hand in favor of evasion… This proves where Netanyahu is headed.”

Despite criticism from within his party’s Knesset faction, “many Likud voters are happy” with Edelstein, a coalition source told The Times of Israel. “Likud voters wanted [the annexation bill] to pass and called the MKs to put pressure on them.”

A spokesman for Likud did not respond to a request for comment.