A Knesset plenum voted 25 to 23 to initiate a parliamentary probe which was then immediately canceled by Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin.
By GIL HOFFMAN
October 21, 2020
(photo credit: KNESSET SPOKESWOMAN – SHMULIK GROSSMAN)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a momentary blow on Wednesday, when the Knesset plenum voted 25 to 23 to initiate a parliamentary probe of his role in the Submarine Affair.Meretz faction head Tamar Zandberg, who initiated the vote, and other opposition MKs briefly celebrated the victory.
Meretz faction head Tamar Zandberg, who initiated the vote, and other opposition MKs briefly celebrated the victory.
But Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin immediately canceled the vote, saying that it had been conducted improperly by his deputy, Joint List MK Mansour Abbas, and that several Likud MKs did not vote, because coalition chairman Miki Zohar had asked for a roll-call vote. Abbas later told Levin that he did not hear the request and agreed that the vote should have been cancelled.
An uproar broke out in the plenum, with opposition MKs shouting “shame, shame” and then walking out.
Zandberg called the cancelation of the vote “a stain on Israeli democracy.” She asked the Knesset’s legal department to review the video from all angles and determine whether the role-call vote had been requested before the voting began.
