Ha'aretz reports today only 56 MKs support the proposed loyalty oath passed by the government. In addition to the entire opposition, including the far-right National Union, two government parties also oppose the oath: Avodah (Labor) and UTJ (United Torah Judaism, an Ashkenazi Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) party). The Ha'aretz head count seemingly does not include at least four Likud MKs who publicly oppose the oath: Benny Begin, Michael Eitan, Dan Meridor, and Reuven Rivlin. Begin, Eitan, and Meridor are all cabinet ministers; Rivlin is the Knesset speaker. Their opposition presumably lowers support for the loyalty oath to 52 MKs, nine short of the 61 MKs needed for passage.
Following the furor over the proposed new loyalty oath applying only to non-Jewish new Israeli citizens, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli Justice Minister to change the proposed wording to include all new Israeli citizens, both Jew and non-Jew alike. However, the aforementioned Ha'aretz report suggests the proposed revision extending the loyalty oath to Jews could result in opposition from both Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu:
The revised version is likely to be particularly problematic for Shas, which, like UTJ, is an ultra-Orthodox party. UTJ MK Moshe Gafni told Haaretz on Monday that he opposes the bill, in part because of the religious objection to Jews swearing any kind of oath. That reason would presumably apply to Shas as well.
As for Yisrael Beiteinu, it is the party that initially proposed and pushed the bill. But a sizable proportion of its voters are immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and it may therefore be sensitive to the claim made by Edelstein and Elkin that the new version discriminates against immigrants.
Shas leader Eli Yishai (the Israeli Interior Minister) and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman (the Israeli Foreign Minister) both opposed extending the proposed loyalty oath to new Jewish citizens of Israel.
While Ha'aretz reported that if current numbers held the loyalty oath would go down to defeat in the Knesset, the opposition continued their attack against the proposed loyalty oath. A group of MKs, artists, and intellectuals met at the Knesset today to express their opposition to the bill, among them Kadima MK Shlomo Molla:
"The country is thriving, but the flood of anti-democratic and anti-Israeli laws in Israel must end. We came here to say, 'Stop (Foreign Minister Avigdor) Lieberman's fascism."
"I am first and foremost a proud Jew, Israeli and Zionist. I am not going to ask that Mohammad Barakeh (Hadash chairman) or Afou Agbaria (Hadash MK) be Zionists. I want to preserve our democracy, because a democracy that does not defend itself is at risk, and we've seen what happened to the Jews when they did not defend themselves," said Molla, who chairs the Knesset's Lobby for the Struggle Against Racism.
I have repeatedly stated that it should not be taken for granted that the entire Knesset would pass the loyalty oath. Therefore, this news, while certainly good, comes as no surprise to me. Based on the very public opposition from Avodah and from senior Likud members, it has always been abundantly clear that the loyalty oath pushed by Yisrael Beiteinu thankfully faced a steep uphill climb. This news only reiterates that.
Hopefully, Prime Minister Netanyahu, cognizant of the damage already caused by proposing this loyalty oath and of the fact that it faces uncertain-to-unlikely prospects for passage, will decide to shelve this bill before it gets to a Knesset vote. Prime Minister Netanyahu will also hopefully fire Avigdor Lieberman, the prime pusher of this "loyalty" agenda.
While I am hopeful that the former will come to pass, I doubt the latter will ever come to pass. In the meantime, I can be somewhat satisfied that while the Israeli government did not do the right thing, it looks like the Knesset will do the right thing.
Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
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