National Unity submits bill to cancel Knesset’s upcoming recess

The National Unity party submits a bill that seeks to cancel the Knesset’s upcoming recess, slated to begin at the end of the month and run until October 27.

“Going on a three-month recess at this time, while 120 hostages are still in the hands of Hamas, thousands are still displaced from their homes, and thousands of men and women of the security forces are being called to serve and are forced to leave their homes, their families and their workplaces harms government oversight during wartime as well as the public interest,” the party says in a statement.

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, it notes. Just as Israeli solders “are not going on vacation,” neither should elected officials, National Unity argues.

Their announcement comes a week after Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer, making a similar argument, called on Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to cancel the recess.

Recalling his party’s unsuccessful call to cancel the Knesset’s previous recess, which ran from April 7 to May 19, Forer said lawmakers now “have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and do the minimum required to change the situation.”