The Knesset on Wednesday approved legislation that would allow United Torah Judaism chairman Yakov Litzman to resume the position of deputy health minister, despite an underhanded ploy by the opposition to foil the vote.
United Torah Judaism MKs traditionally avoid accepting ministerial positions due to the party's reluctance to grant full legitimacy to a secular Jewish state. Litzman served as deputy health minister in the past, but he enjoyed full ministerial powers, an arrangement that ruffled the opposition's feathers.
Following a 2015 High Court of Justice ruling barring deputy ministers from fulfilling the role of ministers, Litzman was granted a special rabbinical dispensation to accept the position of health minister. He resigned two months ago over his disapproval of Israel Railways infrastructure work on Shabbat.
Wednesday's vote, passed with a majority of 62 to 38, approved an amendment to Basic Law: The Government essentially reinstating the position of deputy health minister.
The opposition, which criticized the bill as one tailored specifically for Litzman, whose departure threatened the survival of the coalition, filed dozens of objections to the bill, originally scheduled to be presented for a plenum vote on Wednesday evening.
Trying to blindside the coalition, the opposition pulled its reservations in the early afternoon hours in an attempt to force the vote on the amendment to be held much earlier than scheduled, while Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett and fellow party members Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich were attending the funeral of Raziel Shevach, 35, a father of six who was shot and killed in a terrorist attack near Nablus on Tuesday.
The obvious ruse infuriated the members of the coalition, who were able to stall the vote long enough to allow Bennett, Ariel and Smotrich to arrive back at the plenum in time and vote in favor of the legislation.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who heads the Ministerial Committee on Legislation, said that given the opposition's ploy, the committee will refrain from discussing legislation proposed by opposition MKs in the near future.
"It wouldn't hurt the opposition to act humanely in the face of a terrorist attack," Shaked said. "The gross insensitivity shown by the opposition today was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"I will not tolerate a reality where the opposition holds dayslong filibusters as part of its parliamentary role only to file High Court petitions after they lose [votes]. The opposition has to decide whether it prefers to pursue legislation [in the Knesset] or to circumvent the Knesset."
Likud MK Yariv Levin, Shaked's deputy on the committee, said opposition MKs "crossed all the boundaries of good taste when, in a senseless and inhumane move, they tried to exploit the fact that ministers and MKs were attending the funeral of a terror victim to undermine legislation in the Knesset plenum."
