Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked intends to bring the amendment to the Citizenship Law for approval by the Knesset this week, two weeks after it was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported.
The purpose of the Family Reunification Law is to prevent the flow of Arab families from the Palestinian Authority into Israel proper.
In order to end the situation under which tens of thousands of Arabs from Judea and Samaria will become citizens of the State of Israel each year, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has advanced a new law. However, the Meretz faction filed an appeal on the issue to postpone the discussion in the government on the matter that is expected to take place today and to prevent the vote on it in the plenum later this week and thus try to thwart the proposal.
The storm over the law is a continuation of last week's clashes within the coalition, when Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi voted against the Draft Law, leading to the bill's defeat in its first reading.
The failure to pass the Citizenship Law was one of the first failures of the current coalition, shortly after its formation. Shaked, who is responsible for the bill as Interior Minister, has vowed to pass the law after the Supreme Court ruled that the Interior Ministry could not continue the previous policy of preventing the influx of Arabs from the PA under family unification due to the expiration of the previous law,
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a similar law initiated by MK Simcha Rotman of the opposition (Religious Zionism party). Ministers from the Yamina New Hope and Yisrael Beyteinu parties supported the same law.
After the coalition's loss with the Draft Law last week, Shaked said that if the Meretz and Ra'am parties continued to oppose the coalition's bill, the coalition would support and pass MK Rotman's bill in its place.