i24 News – Two no-confidence motions against Israel’s coalition government were rejected on Monday at the start of parliament’s summer session.
The Knesset plenum voted down a measure submitted by the opposition Likud factions by a tally of 52 in favor and 61 against.
Another no-confidence measure led by the Shas party failed to pass with 52 for and 56 against.
The Islamist Ra’am party of the coalition was absent from the votes. The party led by MK Mansour Abbas froze its membership in the coalition on April 17 over violence at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount amid a wave of terror in Israel.
MK Idit Silman, who abruptly resigned from the government last month, was absent. The member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party left the coalition in favor of Likud, which made the government lose its parliamentary majority.
Renegade MK Amichai Chikli, who was ousted from Yamina two weeks ago, was also absent.
The vote is largely symbolic because Israeli law mandates that an alternative government must be presented for a no-confidence motion to pass.
