MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint List party, said on Wednesday that Knesset members from the Joint List will not be able to vote in favor of the budget law that was approved by the Bennett-Lapid government.
At the same time, Odeh estimated that the budget law would be approved by a majority of 61 MKs in a vote in the Knesset and there is no danger that the government will fall over the budget.
In an interview with Hala TV, MK Odeh said that Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman proposed in talks with the Joint List to give a budget to the Arab sector and present it as a joint achievement. However, he added, the Joint List opposes the budget because if it accepted the proposal, it would also support the other items in the budget which include raising the price of electricity and new taxes, and this means that Liberman gives a budget with one hand and takes it away with the other.
Referring to Ra’am chairman MK Mansour Abbas' criticism of the Joint List, MK Odeh said that the Joint List had in the past reached important achievements regarding the budget for the Arab sector, including a plan in which 15 billion shekels were allocated to the Arab sector without the Bedouin community in the south and north and the Druze community.
He added that even the anti-violence plan, which amounted to 2.5 billion shekels, began with a meeting between the Joint List and then-Minister of Internal Security, Gilad Erdan.