The chairman of the Knesset committee, MK Nir Orbach (Yamina), left the Knesset Wednesday afternoon until the Ra'am party returns to vote.
Mansour Abbas' party is boycotting votes in protest of the planting by the Keren Kayemet Leyisrael (KKL) in the Negev.
Orbach said at a coalition board meeting before leaving the Knesset: "Give me one reason to stay here and vote. Why can they [Ra'am] always do what they want, while I have to continue to sit here in any situation."
The director general of the Religious Zionist Party, Yehuda Wald, responded to Orbach's move saying, "Not the Electricity Law, not the young settlements, not billions for the Islamic movement, not the wives of the yeshiva learners, not the attack on the Chief Rabbinate. The first time Orbach demands something, it's that Ra'am come back to sit next to him."