Israeli budget approved in victory for Arab coalition party
The big winner of the approval of Israel’s 2021 state budget is the leader of the Arab coalition party Ra’am, Mansour Abbas.
After a long night of deliberations, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced to the Knesset on Aug. 2, “Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has a budget!” The cabinet ministers, who voted unanimously for it, burst into a round of applause.
The intense pressure facing the new government was gone: The coalition had survived its first major test. It had just approved a budget for the country for 2021-2022, after two years in which Israel had no budget at all because of the political crisis.
The vote was just the budget's first hurdle in getting approved. Its fate is ultimately up to the Knesset.
The Knesset will debate over the next few weeks, in committee and in the plenum. Every clause will be pored over and some of its proposed reforms may be removed or amended to ensure that the final budget wins a majority. The actual vote is expected to take place in November. Then, if everything goes according to plan, the Bennett-Lapid government should enter a relatively easy phase.
