Knesset approves in preliminary vote to dissolve itself

The vote comes a day after Zionist regime’s Blue & White Chairman Benny Gantz made a bombshell announcement that his party will vote in favor of a bill after the war minister accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of consistently misleading the public over the budget issue to serve his own political ends.

A bill to dissolve the Knesset will require three additional successful readings before new elections must be called.

With Blue & White's support the motion of no-confidence proposed by the opposition, normally a formality that is voted down virtually automatically by the government coalition, is all but assured to be approved.

MK Mansour Abbas's Ra'am party, recently allied with the prime minister on various shared interests, said they will skip the vote. Ra'am is part of the Joint List political alliance, which is currently in opposition.

Gantz spoke shortly before entering the Knesset plenum, leaving a lifeline for Netanyahu to avoid elections if he agrees to approve a two-year budget as was agreed upon in the coalition deal.

"If Netanyahu approves the budget, everything will work out," he said. "Anything that prevents elections is a welcomed thing. The best solution is for this budget to be passed and for this government to continue to function."

Gantz's former ally turned critic, Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party, is now the Knesset opposition leader and he is the one who presented the bill in the plenum.

"There is an adult but he is not responsible," Lapid said at the onset of the debate. "Whenever there is a problem he throws the responsibility onto someone else. You have left too many of us behind, desperate, alone."