A bill that will grant far-right firebrand and future national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir more control over Israel's law enforcement agencies was cleared on Monday for second and third readings in the Knesset plenum as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are bracing for a long, sleepless night of filibustering in the Israeli parliament.
The Knesset select committee in charge of examining revisions to the Police Ordinance intended to delegate authorities from the police commissioner to the national security minister signed off on the bill Monday afternoon, and now the incoming right-wing coalition is hoping to complete the second reading that same day before sending the bill to a third and final reading on Thursday.
However, their parliamentary rivals are planning to filibuster the vote, which is expected to run well into the night, hoping to defeat the bill.
The proposed bill will reshape the balance of power between the police and the political echelon, making Ben-Gvir the de-facto police chief while also granting him authority over Border Police’s operations in the West Bank which have hitherto been presided over by the army.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid slammed the future coalition, which is set to be the most hardline in Israel's history, during a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid party, calling it a "government of madness".
"What we saw in recent days was not coalition negotiations, but rather a ransacking of the public coffers and democratic values. A ransacking that humiliates us in front of the whole world," he said.
"This is not a full-on right-wing government, this is a full-on government of madness."
Lapid further warned that there are power-hungry far-right elements within the budding government that will go on to implement more radical reforms.
"They aren't going all of a sudden fall in love with democracy. They won't see the light and reach the conclusion that they believe in the liberal values of the Declaration of Independence," he said sarcastically. "They won't get up one morning and register that Judaism belongs to everyone."
In response, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu lampooned Lapid and accused him of refusing to accept the results of the Nov. 1 elections, in which the Likud leader's conservative-religious bloc secured a comfortable 64-seat majority in the 120-strong Knesset.
"Losing an election is not the end of democracy, it is the essence of democracy. You refuse to accept the choice of the people and incite the public against its own choice. You are disseminating endless lies against the elected government," Netanyahu said in a video posted to social media.
"What's next for you, sending protesters to scale the Knesset's fences?" he added, evoking the January 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump who refused to concede his election loss.
"I'm urging you to act responsibly, accept the people's choice and transfer power peacefully so that we can fix everything you destroyed in the last year and a half."