Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a controversial bill Sunday evening that critics say is designed to block former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leading rival, from running in the next election. The same committee, however, postponed a separate measure that would allow lawmakers to suspend Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal trial, amid deep legal and political backlash.
The Bennett-focused bill, sponsored by Likud lawmaker Avichai Boaron, would bar leaders of newly formed parties from accessing campaign funds if their previous parties were dissolved within the past seven years and still owe debts — effectively freezing Bennett’s financing until old obligations are cleared.
According to the bill’s explanatory notes, the rule would apply only to debts “created due to improper conduct” as determined by the State Comptroller — but political observers say its intent is unmistakable.
Bennett, who has reentered politics after leading the short-lived Yamina party, denounced the legislation as “personal, retroactive, and anti-democratic,” accusing Netanyahu’s Likud party of trying to bar a political opponent through financial technicalities.
“Instead of running against me in a free election, the Likud party is trying to prevent me from running,” Bennett wrote on social media after the vote. “If they thought they could win, they wouldn’t need to change the rules midgame.”
Bennett called the measure “unconstitutional” and predicted it would be “struck down immediately.”
The former premier — who briefly unseated Netanyahu in 2021 before his governing coalition collapsed the following year — is viewed as the most viable leader of Israel’s opposition bloc. Recent polls show Bennett’s new faction, Bennett 2026, would emerge as the second-largest party after Likud if elections were held today.
Yamina, his defunct party, is believed to owe NIS 17 million ($5 million), while Bennett’s earlier faction, Habayit Hayehudi, owes roughly NIS 3 million ($913,000).
Under Boaron’s proposal, any party leader associated with such debts would be barred from spending campaign donations until all liabilities are repaid — a restriction that could cripple Bennett’s reentry into national politics.
The Attorney General’s Office issued a rare rebuke of the bill, warning it “contradicts fundamental principles of electoral law” and infringes on the right to vote and be elected.
In a sharply worded legal opinion, the AG’s deputies wrote that Boaron’s proposal “retroactively changes the rules of the game” and raises “serious concerns” about its personal and punitive nature.
Even within the opposition, criticism was mixed. Blue and White leader Benny Gantz said the intent to ensure financial accountability was legitimate but called the retroactive framing “wrong and dangerous.”
“It is right to prevent party leaders from abandoning debts to the public,” Gantz said, “but not to craft laws aimed at one political rival.”
Boaron defended the measure, saying, “First, pay off your financial debts to the public. After that, you can start a new campaign. There’s absolutely no reason someone owing NIS 17 million should be launching another multimillion-shekel campaign at the public’s expense.”
Approval by the Ministerial Committee means the government now officially backs the proposal, which will move to the Knesset for an initial reading and three additional votes before becoming law.
While advancing the Bennett bill, the same committee delayed a separate measure that would empower the Knesset to halt criminal proceedings against a sitting prime minister or cabinet minister.
The proposal, filed by Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, would authorize the Knesset House Committee to “stay the legal proceedings” against a prime minister following indictment — a power that, critics warn, would effectively allow politicians to suspend prosecutions at will.
The bill’s single operative sentence does not specify any criteria for such intervention, sparking alarm from constitutional experts and the Attorney General’s Office, which called it “unconstitutional” and “a grave threat to the principle of equality before the law.”
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s deputies wrote that it “allows political considerations to infiltrate the criminal process,” undermining judicial independence and the separation of powers.
Despite media reports suggesting Justice Minister Yariv Levin supports the idea, the vote was postponed at Netanyahu’s insistence. The prime minister reportedly demanded the law not apply to him personally, given his ongoing trial in three corruption cases. Netanyahu denies all wrongdoing.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — whose party sponsored the bill — publicly urged Netanyahu to reconsider, arguing the legislation was a “matter of national responsibility.”
“To tie the prime minister up in court four days a week during a historic security crisis harms the State of Israel, not just the prime minister,” Ben Gvir wrote on X, vowing to push the measure forward despite the delay.
Both bills — one seen as an attempt to hobble a rival, the other as a move to shield a leader — have deepened concerns that Israel’s political establishment is testing the limits of democratic norms amid intensifying polarization.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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One Response
Why would anyone want anything to do with this traitor to the country Bennett who gave millions of shekel to those terrorist Arab parties to form his government, gave work permits to all those people from Gaza that collected intelligence and brought about the plan to slaughter us. Not to mention he went against all his principles and abandoned his voter base. This guy should be dropped off