Likud’s Edelstein booted from Knesset defense committee for ‘repeated violations of faction discipline’

Coalition whip Ofir Katz informs fellow Likud MK Yuli Edelstein that he is being removed from his position on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee effective immediately.

Katz says that the decision was made after Edelstein violated faction discipline to vote in favor of a West Bank settlement annexation bill that was boycotted by the party last week, as well due to as “his repeated violations of faction discipline.”

In addition to being removed from his post, Edelstein “will not be able to introduce private legislation and speak on behalf of the Likud faction in the plenum for two months,” Katz’s office says in a statement.

Both Edelstein’s spokesperson and a coalition insider had independently confirmed Edelstein’s pending ouster to The Times of Israel last week.

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 which would have seen harsh sanctions levied on draft evaders. He was replaced as chairman by fellow Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, who is currently working on a new draft of the legislation.

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

On Tuesday evening, following the publication of details of Bismuth’s plan, Edelstein posted on X that after seeing the draft law he understood “that those who ousted me were right to do so: I don’t have the skills to come up with a draft-dodging scheme in place of a conscription law — and in the midst of an existential war, when reservists are collapsing.”

Responding to Edelstein’s removal from the committee, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz announces that he has instructed his party to make its parliamentary resources, both in the committee and in the Knesset more generally, available to the Likud lawmaker “to the extent he desires.”

“The coalition’s shameful decision only emphasizes how important MK Edelstein’s presence on the committee is. Neither he nor the voices that represent our children who serve can be silenced,” says Gantz.

Asked who would replace Edelstein on the committee, a spokeswoman for Katz said it has not yet been decided.