After a three-month hiatus, Israel’s parliament—the Knesset—opened its winter session, with a slew of controversial items topping the legislative agenda and as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s future remains up in the air as a result of two ongoing corruption probes. Despite the premier being under investigation for allegedly accepting gifts from supporters and for purportedly exploring a deal to improve his media coverage in a leading Israeli daily, Netanyahu has nevertheless proposed an ambitious program which includes expanding Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries to absorb surrounding Jewish communities in the West Bank; rewriting Israel’s Basic Laws (which essentially substitute for a Constitution) to circumvent the striking down by the Supreme Court of Knesset bills, most recently those relating to ultra-Orthodox conscription and illegal immigration; and passing a comprehensive budget. Other potential issues that have recently been floated as trial balloons in the media include lowering the electoral threshold for entering parliament from 3.25% to 2% (effectively reversing the decision to increase the barrier just before the general election in 2015); passing a law that would make a sitting prime minister immune to investigations that do not focus on serious crimes or behavior deemed harmful to the state; and moving to further anchor Israel’s Jewish character in the law. Netanyahu’s current coalition is made up of six parties—his Likud along with Kulanu, Jewish Home, United Torah Judaism, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu—that together hold 66 out of 120 seats in the Knesset, a slim majority that bestows upon each member of the government a disproportionate amount of power and which has in the past made it difficult for the premier to actualize his legislative goals.
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