Members of Israel’s new coalition government are already arguing amongst themselves.
The eight-party coalition was faced with a decision about whether to extend the law that prohibits Palestinian Authority Arabs from entering Israel for “reunification” with Israeli Arabs.
The Family Reunification Law, which was passed as a security measure, is one that has been repeatedly renewed for the past 20 years to ensure hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Authority citizens are not able to win naturalization and eventually outnumber Jewish citizens in the Jewish State.
The Islamist Ra’am Party faction (United Arab List) is opposed to extending the law. The far-left Meretz Party has opposed it in the past.
The opposition Likud Party and its allied hareidi-religious factions announced they, too, intend to oppose extension of the law — unless the coalition government supports legalization of young settlements that currently are considered “illegal.”
Because of the lack of support from Ra’am and Meretz, the coalition would only be able to pass the extension with right-wing votes.
In addition, the Likud, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties filed two no-confidence motions against the new government on Wednesday. One motion, filed by Likud faction chairperson Miki Zohar, is to be presented Monday to the Knesset.
The second motion, which focused on religious issues, was filed by Shas and UTJ together, and said in part, “For the first time in the history of Israel, a government was founded that sees Judaism as an obstacle, as superfluous and redundant weight that needs to be removed.”
The motions are not expected to pass.
