Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Benjamin Netanyahu, Bowing to Right Wing, Vows Israelis Will Vote on Peace

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to expedite legislation in the coming days of a public referendum bill, a senior official in Jerusalem said. The move comes in response to pressure from the right over renewed negotiations with the Palestinians.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett conveyed a message Sunday to Netanyahu through coalition chairman MK Yariv Levin, in which he stated that Habayit Hayehudi, of which Bennett is chairman, demands immediate implementation of the coalition agreement in regard to the referendum bill, which meant passing it within 90 days.

Bennett told Levin that he wanted the preliminary reading of the bill to take place immediately, among other reasons because of the renewal of talks with the Palestinians. “If it was urgent to vote on the universal draft bill or the governance bill, the referendum bill can also be moved ahead quickly,” Bennett told Levin.

Levin gave Netanyahu the message and the prime minister, who wanted to move the bill ahead in any case, told Levin that he would see whether the bill could be expedited. Netanyahu also looked into the possibility of moving legislation ahead this week, but found out that it had still not been properly presented to the Knesset and a number of technical steps still had to take place.

For more go to Haaretz

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.