The Knesset plenum will open on Monday at 9:00 a.m. instead of the usual 4:00 p.m. in order to begin an extra-long session to approve or advance a series of bill proposals before the Passover recess begins on April 2.
The long session is known as “cleaning the table”, as its goal is to wrap up legislative procedures so that they do not need to be revisited when the Knesset returns in early May after Independence Day.
Some of the bills are expected to pass second and third readings and become law. These include a proposal by approximately 30 MKs from the Likud, Shas, Yesh Atid, National Unity, Yisrael Beytenu, and the Democrats, to form a new airport adjacent to the Nevatim Air Base. The law says that planning stages must be completed within 16 months of the bill becoming law and that the airport itself must be completed within seven years.
Another multi-partisan proposal is to form a new National Poverty Directorate to “reduce poverty, prevent its deepening, and rescue people from poverty, all with the goal of advancing the right of every person for an honorable existence,” according to the bill’s wording.
Another group of bill proposals is expected to pass their first readings, after which they will return to Knesset committees for further debate.
These include a proposal to require that representatives of Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation (known as KAN) appear in the Knesset Economics Committee for an annual update. The proposal is controversial; its supporters argued that like all public funds, KAN’s budget should be overseen and regulated, while its detractors argued that the law invited unnecessary political attempts to intervene in KAN’s operations since other statutory bodies already oversaw it.
Additional proposals
Another proposal that will likely go up for their first reading is a bill that requires the government to formulate a national security strategy and present it annually to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Another proposal is to prohibit the employment in Israel of teachers with degrees from academic institutions in the Palestinian Authority.
The coalition completed its important legislation last week with the passing of the 2025 state budget and the bill to change the makeup of the committee that appoints Israel’s judges.