Labor’s Lazimi submits bill to cancel Knesset recess: ‘No justification for elected officials to be on vacation’

Labor MK Naama Lazimi submits a bill to cancel the upcoming Knesset recess, arguing that “there is no justification for elected officials to be on vacation” during wartime, when the legislature’s oversight responsibilities “are of utmost and critical importance.”

In a statement, she says that the bill — which is signed by Yesh Atid, National Unity and Labor lawmakers — is modeled on one supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2000s.

“The Knesset going on a three-month recess at the most difficult time the State of Israel has ever known is a real scandal,” the statement says. “It must be established once and for all that in times of emergency the Knesset will not be able to go into recess.”

Opposition parties, along with relatives of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for almost nine months, are up in arms over the Knesset’s upcoming three-month recess, slated to begin at the end of the month and to run until October 27.

Lazimi’s bill is submitted on the heels of a similar proposal by the National Unity party, which argues that the Knesset is currently holding “critical discussions” on issues such as ultra-Orthodox military service, the extension of conscripts’ and reservists’ service, and the rehabilitation of the battered north of the country.

Just as Israeli soldiers “are not going on vacation,” neither should elected officials, the centrist party argued.

At a Knesset House Committee meeting yesterday, lawmakers decided that parliamentary committees will be allowed to hold up to seven meetings during the recess, while the Education, Culture and Sports Committee will be allowed to hold up to eight meetings ahead of the opening of the new school year on September 1.

The number of discussions in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will not be limited given the ongoing war.