Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left a Jerusalem hospital against his doctor’s orders to help his party pass a divisive budget law.
This is coming just two days after Netanyahu undergoes prostate removal surgery. The PM returned to continue his recovery hours later, with the parliamentary crisis averted.
According to CNN, Netanyahu spent the day at the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – to push a controversial bill aimed at regulating how companies in Israel distribute dividends and pay taxes.
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Nentayu’s presence was described as decisive as the bill was passed by one vote after some right-wing parties in the Prime Minister’s government attempted to block it over disagreements with the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The issue underscores divisions within the government.
Among members of the parliament holding back the bill — involving funding for the police — over a disagreement with Smotrich, a former ally, was Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who also leads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
As argued by Ben Gvir, the tax reform diverts money away from raises for police officers, while Netanyahu and Smotrich argue that the police have already received large increases in the past two years.
However, Netanyahu on his side said he expects Ben Gvir to “stop shaking the coalition and endangering the existence of the right-wing government at a crucial moment in Israel’s history.”
Ben Gvir and Smotrich traded blame over the need for Netanyahu to leave the hospital for the vote.
Smotrich said Ben Gvir’s firm position chose to “hurt the prime minister and bother him from his sick bed.”
But Ben Gvir noted that the Prime Minister might have had no reason to leave his hospital bed for the vote if Smotrich agreed to negotiate.
“It pained me greatly to see how Finance Minister Smotrich drags the prime minister whom we all love from his sick bed, just because of his ego and his refusal to conduct any negotiations with me, despite the pleas of the prime minister’s associates,” Ben Gvir told the Knesset.
On Netanyahu leaving his recovery bed, a spokesperson for the Hadassah Medical Center told CNN that the PM decided to leave the hospital “contrary to the medical opinion of the staff.”
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said an examination on Wednesday had discovered a urinary tract infection due to a benign prostate enlargement, and that the prime minister’s infection had been treated by antibiotics.
