MK Yakov Asher (United Torah Judaism), who heads the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, on Monday criticized the Health Ministry's hesitancy and lack of decisiveness with regards to the Green Passport plan.
Under the plan, hotels and sports events have been allowed to reopen to those immune to coronavirus, and event halls and restaurants are expected to follow suit.
"The Prime Minister brought a great and unprecedented achievement with the vaccines, and all governments of the world are standing in awe of this achievement, but we don't take it anywhere," Asher said. "Instead of advancing the Green Passport, we hold back on the reopening of the economy and harm the vaccinated public's faith in us."
"Within a few days, we will have over five million citizens who received the first dose of the vaccine or recovered from coronavirus. The danger to them is almost nonexistent, they needed to have started on the Green Passport path, a path that I initiated and advanced over the course of several months. But that isn't moving forward, because they are trying to hold the stick from both ends. I am not saying that we should allow mass parties, but we need to expand the Passport and reopen event halls as soon as possible to allow people to get married, and we need to reopen large restaurants according to an appropriate protocol. They have the ability to coordinate events with a list of only attendees who have a Green Passport, without danger.
"It's unthinkable that five million people who have almost no chance of contracting coronavirus will not be able to live normal lives. There will always be some risk or other, but we can't trample the Green Passport and the tremendous achievement of the vaccines by not allowing five million people to return to as normal lives as possible."
Regarding the anti-vaxxers, Asher said, "If those getting vaccinated would receive in exchange 90% of their normal routines, all of the anti-vaxxers would be running to get vaccinated, and the fake news industry would collapse. The government's current behavior sends a message of a lack of faith in the vaccines and adds to the negative discourse. There's no one who doesn't want his normal routine back."
"I call on the representatives of the Health Ministry, on the doctors, to do some risk management: Allow people to return in a proper and safe fashion to their normal routines. Stop taking one step forward and two steps back. Take responsibility and act logically."