Yesh Atid will back budget, if it includes money for the north

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid says his opposition party will support the budget, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reinstates a financial plan to develop northern Israeli communities.

“If the plan is put back in the budget, as the prime minister has promised, we will vote for it, happily,” Lapid says at the start of the party’s weekly faction meeting.

The budget has funding for all parties, but “for this, there is no money,” he says.

Meretz MK Ilan Gilon (right) speaks during a protest by residents of northern Israel at the Knesset in Jerusalem on October 31, 2016, against proposed budget cuts for their communities. The banners read: 'The government is losing the north.' (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Meretz MK Ilan Gilon (right) speaks during a protest by residents of northern Israel at the Knesset in Jerusalem on October 31, 2016, against proposed budget cuts for their communities. The banners read: ‘The government is losing the north.’ (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Lapid speaks as hundreds of protesters from northern Israel rally outside the Knesset to protest the government’s decision to excise the program from its two-year budget.

Earlier, protesters against the cut hurled toilet paper at Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon during a Finance Committee meeting.

— Marissa Newman

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