This is a sweet victory by a one vote margin," MK Yisrael Katz (Likud) said Wednesday after the Knesset voted 45 to 44 in favor of giving Negev residents tax breaks. "Today we saw proof that the Olmert government does not have an economic-social majority in the Knesset and this is the beginning of the end of the government," he added.

Katz, who sponsored the law, hailed the vote as "a big victory for the Negev over the government and a big victory for the opposition against the coalition which tried with all its might to cause the law to fall."

"There was an effort by the prime minister, the coalition chairman and the entire government to prevent and scuttle the law," Katz explained.