Israeli government facing first test
The citizenship law has been a point of contention for many Israeli parties
Jerusalem24 – The new Israeli government coalition will prepare to face the first real test regarding the extension of the “prevent family unification” law, which is opposed by the parties participating in the coalition.
The law prohibits granting Israeli citizenship to Palestinians who married Israeli women, and its validity must be extended after about three weeks.
According to Israel Channel 12, this is the first political minefield for the new government led by Naftali Bennett, who has been leading the new coalition for two years, and whose leaders will hold a special session on Monday to discuss reaching an agreement on this law.
According to the channel, the current coalition did not appreciate how difficult it would be to reach an agreement on the law, although Bennett and his ally Yair Lapid had expected to face opposition from Mansour Abbas’s United Arab List party and MKs from the Joint Arab List, but they did not believe that Meretz members would; especially Minister Issawi Freij.
The new Israeli alliance will have two options. The first is to present the law early tomorrow, Monday, before the Knesset, and try to embarrass the opposition and show its willingness to give up the interests of its voters for political games. On the other hand, the vote tomorrow will put the new government in front of losing an initial issue for the right-wing Yamina Knesset members.
The second option is the possibility of postponing the vote until the first weekend of next July, in order to create a time window for further negotiations with the United Arab List and Meretz.
If the Yamena Knesset members from the current government coalition reject the second proposal, and if an agreement fails, this will be seen as the beginning of instability in the new coalition, which will be reflected in its continuation.
Frej had confirmed yesterday that he would not vote for this law, stressing his adherence to voting against it, as the Meretz party did for more than 18 years.
He believed that it is possible to work on amending the law so that it satisfies all parties in the new government coalition.
Likud MK, Miki Zohar, said his party had not decided whether or not to help the government pass the law in the Knesset, and that the majority of his party members were not interested in giving it a safety net.
