The ordinance must be automatically renewed every year and normally has a large majority. However this time it may represent a real hurdle for the left-leaning Bennett-Lapid administration. The ordinance must be ratified within three months of the swearing-in of a new Knesset, which means there are just three weeks to pass it into law.

Incoming Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked thought that she would easily be able to pass the law but then the Arab Ra’am party and the left-wing Meretz party started raising objections. MK Musi Raz (Meretz) said that this is a “discriminatory law which places restrictions on Arab citizens and tells them who to fall in love with and who not and sees every Arab citizen as a security and demographic threat.”

Shaked was not concerned about these objections since she thought that the opposition members would help her pass the ordinance. However the opposition is not in a chivalrous mood and MK Miki Zohar, head of the Likud faction said that his party would not let the government manage so easily and conditioned his support on the passing of a right-wing bill regulating the settlements in Judea and Samaria. Shaked knows that such a bill would not be favorably viewed by the other parts of the coalition.

The Likud responded by stating that “because of the ridiculous composition of Bennett’s frail government it is not succeeding, even on its third day, in extending the ordinance regarding unification of families which prevents citizenship of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and illegal migrants which could destroy the Jewish state.”

Shaked however intends to place the item on the agenda and pass it, stating that ” I don’t even begin to imagine that the opposition will harm Israel’s security for political games. I’m sure they will show the necessary maturity and support the ordinance. I have no doubt that the head of the opposition will fulfill his promise that ‘regarding the security of Israel, there is no coalition and no opposition.”

MK Betzalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) also said that he had no intention of helping Yemina pass the ordinance: “For months we have been screaming that establishing a government with enemies of Israel and supporters of terror is a calamity for the Jewish state and that such a coalition cannot maintain the vital interests of the state and will harm them. By establishing an extreme left-wing coalition with supporters of terror, Bennett and his colleagues harmed and are harming Israel’s security and Jewish majority. The responsibility is on them and them alone. Our responsibility is to remove them from power as swiftly as possible.”

It is estimated by senior members of the coalition that the ordinance will still pass if the leaders enforce coalition discipline which would apply to Raam and Meretz as well and this would require them to maintain support or to leave the government, which presumably they will not wish to do.