After nearly 30 years as a Knesset reporter, I was convinced that I'd seen everything and nothing could surprise me anymore. In 1999, I witnessed the most embarrassing event in the history of the Knesset, when former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg announced in the plenum that then-MK Professor Amnon Rubinstein had passed away and began to eulogize him, with all the MKs and ministers standing in silence to honor his memory – until it became clear that it was a mistake and Rubinstein was alive (and still is).
I saw up close the 1990 farce that took place in the plenum when Shimon Peres stood up to represent his new government but two MKs from Agudat Israel (now part of United Torah Judaism) hadn't even shown up and Peres was forced to inform the Knesset speaker that he did not have the majority to present his government.
And of course, it's hard to forget the double vote in May 2003 by MKs Yehiel Hazan and Michael Gorlovsky, who voted in place of MKs who were absent.
But it never occurred to me that the government would disband a Knesset barely a month after it was inaugurated.
On Wednesday, I looked at a few of the 49 new MKs who made it into the Knesset in the April election and felt for them. Thursday marks a month since the ceremony that welcomed them into the Knesset in an impressive swearing-in ceremony. They swore an oath of office, started learning their way around the building's floors and hallways and were given nice offices, cars, and three parliamentary aides each. Some of them even managed to give their maiden speeches, but even before any of them were informed to what committees they would be assigned or learn how to submit an agenda or the procedure for writing bills and questions, they are being sent home, and it's not clear how many of them will be back in the Knesset after the new election.
There is no doubt that the current law must be amended because it allows for the dissolution of the Knesset while a coalition is being assembled. This is a lawful step but one that has never been taken by any previous Knesset. Any time a candidate to assemble a government was unable to drum up the support of 61 MKs, they would inform the president that they had been unable to form a coalition. That is what happened under Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni, but this time the prime minister decided not to put the matter back into President Reuven Rivlin's hands, but to initiate the process of dissolving the Knesset and holding an early election. Apparently, he was worried that Rivlin would assign another MK (Benny Gantz from Blue and White).
