Lapid Rejects Likud Offer to Oversee Ra’am Spending in Exchange for Support of Budget

YERUSHALAYIM
Foreign Affairs Minister Yair Lapid during a Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s office on Wednesday. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

The Likud offered Thursday morning to rescind its amendments and expedite the passage of the 2022 state budget if the coalition would agree to enable the opposition to help monitor funding for the Ra’am Party.

Likud MK Mickey Zohar said that his party wanted to make sure Ra’am did not funnel state money to Hamas.

Last week, Channel 13 reported that a Hamas activist thanked an association that receives its funds from the Ra’am party, which suggests that Ra’am is transferring funds it receives from the coalition to the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid responded that he saw the offer as a joke, and said that the coalition would not accept it.

Shas MK Moshe Arbel said that “the mask has been removed from the face of the coalition. Opposition to the mechanisms of supervision [of the Ra’am funding] and the refusal of the opposition’s proposal should be a warning signal for all of us.”

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