BICOM

The Knesset voted unanimously yesterday evening to dissolve in advance of a 17 March election. Prior to the vote, which effectively freezes the legislative process until a new government is formed, several pieces of legislation were rushed through.

The Knesset Finance Committee approved late changes to the existing 2014 budget, which will remain in place for the time being as the 2015 state budget has yet to be approved. The changes made yesterday included a £580 million addition to the defence budget which it says is needed in the wake of Operation Protective Edge. Most controversially perhaps, a total of £13 million in unused funds was transferred for West Bank settlement funding.

Attending the committee meeting, Labour MK Stav Shaffir protested that further answers were needed from the Finance Ministry. Meanwhile, Meretz MK Issawi Freij commented, “Allocation on the last day of the Knesset is theft. Taking reserves and sending them all to defence on the last day is something we can’t support.”

Meanwhile, the Knesset also approved second and third readings of an amendment to the controversial Anti-Infiltration Bill, which is designed to regulate the detention of African migrants and asylum seekers, who have entered Israel illegally during the past several years. However, it is unclear how many are economic migrants and how many are refugees.

The law seeks to determine how long and under what conditions they can be detained in the Saharonim and Holot detention facilities, which the government constructed to ease the population burden in areas such as south Tel Aviv. However, the High Court has twice ruled the legislation unlawful and warned it would order Holot inmates to be released if a more satisfactory law were not proposed. Yesterday’s amendment does not comply with the High Court’s wishes and is likely to be challenged. Hadash MK Dov Henin asked that the government “take the hundreds of millions of shekels we’re burying in the sand [at Holot] and invest it in a plan to save south Tel Aviv.”