Opposition Leader Yair Lapid argues that Israel should not be paving a path towards distributing political funding promises during wartime, as part of a Knesset debate preceding a vote related to Israel’s updated wartime budget.
“You can’t vote for billions of coalition funds during a war,” Lapid says from the Knesset rostrum. “I call on all coalition members who still have a piece of conscience in their heart to vote against this budget.”
The NIS 30 billion ($8 billion) being redirected from the current budget does not include coalition funds, but rather enables releasing over a billion shekels in frozen funds, by finalizing budgetary changes for the end of 2023.
The budget refresh does not address the 2024 budget, or the billions of shekels in coalition funds passed as part of it.
Slated to come up for its first of three Knesset votes on Wednesday, the budget is expected to pass, even without support from the wartime coalition’s National Unity party.
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From the Liveblog of
Sunday, December 3, 2023
