The Likud, Religious Zionism, Shas and United Torah Judaism factions have decided to boycott the Knesset discussions on the Electricity Law due to the coalition's decision to approve an expedited procedure for the enactment of the Ra'am party's bill.

The legal adviser to the Knesset Speaker had ruled that the Electricity Law was too important to shorten the period of debate on the legislation, which is supposed to be 90 hours. Despite this, the coalition moved to expedite the debate,

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu will convene the leaders of the opposition parties tomorrow for an emergency discussion on the issue.

A joint statement from the factions stated that "today something happened in the Knesset of Israel. For the first time in the history of the Knesset, the Knesset committee made a decision contrary to the explicit position of the legal counsel and decided on an expedited and unprecedented procedure for approving Ra'am's Electricity Law in the Knesset."

"In order to silence the opposition's criticism of Ra'am's Electricity Law, which legalizes the plunder of state lands by Arab construction of tens of thousands of illegal structures, the coalition revoked the opposition's right to debate and point out any reservations it made and even scheduled a debate on other laws on Wednesday in contrast to an explicit agreement with Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy. All out of submission to the dictates of the Islamic movement that the enactment of the law will be completed by tomorrow.

"The Knesset has thus become redundant, without any possibility of holding substantive debates and in a manner that causes lethal damage to Israeli democracy. Therefore, the leaders of the opposition parties have decided that they have no interest in being present in the game of those who are addicted to the trampling of democracy, until this scandalous decision is changed so that the discussion will take place as has been the practice to date."