Contentious law for politically appointed Oct. 7 probe passes preliminary Knesset reading, amid protests in plenum

Lawmakers vote 53-48 in favor of a preliminary reading of the controversial bill to establish a politically appointed probe into the October 7 failures in place of a state commission of inquiry.

The bill will now be sent to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for preparation ahead of the subsequent readings necessary for it to become law.

Several coalition members remained outside the chamber and did not vote, including Likud MK Yuli Edelstein and New Hope’s Zeev Elkin.

The bill was supported by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and Degel Hatorah faction of UTJ, while members of Agudat Yisrael either remained away from the vote or, in one case, abstained.

Opposition lawmakers repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, with ushers removing MKs including Yesh Atid’s Meirav Ben Ari, Hadash-Ta’al’s Ahmad Tibi and The Democrats’ Naama Lazimi. While successive polls have found that the majority of the public favors a state commission of inquiry, Likud MK Ariel Kallner, the lawmaker behind the bill, insisted ahead of the vote that “only part of the public will trust” a state commission.

“The current president of the Supreme Court is not an objective actor and therefore cannot determine the composition of the commission. This is not ideal, but reality cannot be ignored,” claimed Kallner, adding that the investigation must probe “the impact of threats of refusal [to serve in the military] on the erosion of Israeli deterrence in the year preceding the massacre; the conduct of the military echelon vis-à-vis the political echelon; and the impact of Supreme Court intervention in security matters in recent years.”

Speaking out against the bill, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “running away” from responsibility for the failures of October 7.

“He is evading responsibility for the suitcases of dollars from Qatar. He is fleeing from responsibility for the fact that the head of the Shin Bet warned him that Hamas was using the money to buy weapons, and he is fleeing from responsibility for the fact that the [army] chief of staff warned him weeks before the disaster that disaster was on the way, that the intelligence agencies warned him that a disaster was coming,” Lapid said.

The bill calls for a majority of 80 out of 120 MKs to appoint a six-member committee and its chairman. If there is no agreement after two weeks, both the opposition and coalition would be allowed to select three committee members each, who would be joined by four supervisory members representing bereaved families.

The legislation states that if either the coalition or opposition does not cooperate in the process or cannot settle on a candidate, the Knesset speaker will choose instead — giving the coalition effective control in the event of an expected opposition boycott.

Netanyahu and his supporters have long rejected a state commission of inquiry, the country’s highest investigative authority, because its make-up would be determined by the judiciary, which his government does not trust and seeks to weaken through a judicial overhaul.