Members Storm out of Knesset to Protest Speaker’s Tactics

Opposition members of the Knesset stalked out of the chamber en masse Wednesday night to protest “deliberate delaying” tactics by the Knesset speaker that, they say, twice snatched voting victory from their grasp.

A leader of the Likud, Moshe Katsav, said the speaker, Shevach Weiss of Labor held up key votes twice within the past week to save his party from defeat on the floor by allowing coalition members time to reach the chamber.

The immediate cause of the walkout came at the end of a tense debate over proposals to equalize child benefits paid to Arab and Jewish Israelis.

Present regulations award larger payments to army veterans. That means that most Arabs, who do not serve in the army, receive smaller payments.

Finance Minister Avraham Shohat assured the Knesset the government would be changing this situation over a two-year period; by 1995, full equality would prevail in the matter of child benefits, he said.

He therefore asked proponents of private member’s bills on the issue to agree to defer voting on their proposals. The three proponents agreed.

But Likud whips, noticing the coalition did not have a majority on the floor, exercised their right under Knesset regulations and called for an immediate vote.

Deputy Speaker Esther Solomowitz of the opposition Tsomet party agreed. Just then, Weiss entered the chamber, mounted the podium and changed places with Solomowitz.

Several minutes of uncertainty followed, amid mounting cries of fury from the Likud benches and a gradual filling of the coalition benches.

At that point, Weiss asked Solomowitz to resume her place and conduct the vote as she had intended.

By then, however, the coalition had a clear majority in the chamber and Katsav announced his party would not take part in the vote. All Likud and other opposition Knesset members thereupon rose and walked out.

Weiss later maintained he had been “fully in the right” and denied any intention of helping his own side. He said Solomowitz had unwittingly misled him on the precise procedural situation at the moment of their changeover.

But, as she is a neophyte Knesset member and a woman, he did not wish to wrangle with her in public, he said.

But the Likud leadership pointed to a similar incident just a week ago in a preliminary vote on a government bill lifting a ban on meetings with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Then, too, the coalition seemed to lack a majority as the moment of voting approached. And then, too, Weiss seemed to drag out the proceedings until enough Labor Knesset members dashed to the chamber to save the legislation by one vote, said Likud.