Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked are divided over whether to give up on rebel Yamina MK Amichai Chikli, sources in the party revealed to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Both Bennett and Shaked are furious at Chikli for preventing the passage of a controversial bill preventing Palestinians from receiving citizenship by marrying Arab-Israelis. They were counting on the vote of Chikli to narrowly pass the bill, but he changed his mind at the last minute.
The sources said Shaked wants to initiate the process of formally declaring Chikli a rebel MK. That status would prevent him becoming a minister or running for the next Knesset with any current party.
But the sources said Bennett was willing to give Chikli another chance, knowing that his vote could be needed to pass the state budget and other key laws.
Chikli said in radio interviews on Wednesday that he “does not have to be a soldier of Bennett,” because the prime minister had changed his views. He said his own views had not changed, and that if there were to be an election now, he would vote for the Likud.
He was invited to speak at a Likud rally in Givat Shmuel, but decided not to go to the event after this was revealed.
Despite the opposition of another rebel MK, Eli Avidar of Yisrael Beytenu, the coalition succeeded early Wednesday in passing into law a bill that would enable four MKs to break off from the Likud. The bill, which passed 60-54, changes the old law, which required a third of the MKs in a faction to break away.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s No. 2 in the Likud, MK Yuli Edelstein, said he expects the new law to “boomerang” against the party’s rivals who passed it.
The Likud called the law a desperate and undemocratic move of a coalition trying to make up for its failures.
The Knesset also passed into law bills extending the deadline for passing the state budget until 145 days following the formation of a new government and expanding the Norwegian Law allowing smaller coalition factions to be able to allow an additional minister or deputy minister to resign and be replaced by the next candidate on their party’s Knesset list. If the minister or deputy quits the Knesset, he can return at the new MKs expense.
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar resigned through the Norwegian Law on Wednesday, and when his resignation takes effect on Friday, he will be replaced by the next candidate of his New Hope Party, former Likud MK Michal Shir.
Yesh Atid’s Social Equality Minister Meirav Cohen also resigned, and will be replaced by former MK Moshe Tur-Paz, who was born in Philadelphia to British parents.Also in Yesh Atid, Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll resigned from his MK role to make room for new Yesh Atid MK Simon Davidson.
There are now two American-born MKs in the Knesset: Tur-Paz and Blue and White’s MK Alon Tal, who was born in North Carolina.