Israeli Parliament Legal Advisors Approve Budget Transfers Debate Amid Opposition During Election Recess

Sagitt Afik, the legal advisor to the Knesset, in coordination with Shlomit Erlich, the legal advisor to the Finance Committee, approved holding a Finance Committee discussion on Tuesday regarding budget transfers amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels to ultra-Orthodox communities and settlement projects. This decision was made despite the election recess rule requiring consent from the joint agreement committee of both coalition and opposition members. Opposition members strongly oppose the debate.

Afik noted that out of five requests and three revision votes, some were already presented in the July 17, 2026 Knesset committee decision allowing a committee session on budget transfers. However, the July 29 session did not vote on them due to opposition resistance demanding a thorough and lengthy discussion and the impracticality of extending the session late into the night. Afik ruled that since this is a continuation of the previous discussion, it can proceed within a reasonable timeframe. She also allowed adding a transfer of 78.5 million shekels to the Ministry of Religious Services and a 17.5 million shekel commitment authorization for mandatory supplier payments to prevent IT shutdowns and fund council oversight and salaries.

Opposition leader Merav Ben Ari reiterated her opposition to the committee discussion, emphasizing that any other discussions require her prior consent. Knesset members Vladimir Beliak and Naor Shiri (Yesh Atid-Together), along with Naama Lazimi and Orit Farkash-Hacohen, formally requested canceling the additional Finance Committee session, arguing it violates the Knesset committee decision and lacks explicit approval from the joint agreement committee.

Beliak and Shiri highlighted that before the Knesset dissolution, the Finance Committee was authorized to hold only one session in the first two weeks of the recess to approve budget requests, which lasted 11 hours and approved 19 requests. They accept the legal opinion that the upcoming session is a continuation but insist it must have joint committee approval. Lazimi and Farkash-Hacohen warned that the coalition is attempting to bypass procedures to push through hundreds of millions of shekels in sector-specific funding, including 284 million shekels for ultra-Orthodox education and 83 million for settlement development. They condemned this as a blatant breach of administrative rules and electoral integrity, equating it to election bribery.