Knesset Home Committee officially approves Idan Roll secession from Yesh Atid

The law’s purpose is to deter MKs from switching sides during a given Knesset for opportunistic reasons, i.e. to prevent “political bribery.”

By ELIAV BREUER JANUARY 14, 2025 17:12

(L-R) Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (photo credit: FLASH90)

The Knesset Home Committee approved the official secession of MK Idan Roll from the opposition Yesh Atid party on Tuesday. Roll will now operate in the Knesset as an independent one-man faction.

The decision has political implications for Roll. Assuming he does not resign in the near future, Roll will be barred from serving as a minister in the current government should he join the coalition; he is barred from running in the next election as a part of any of the parties that are currently in the Knesset; and he will no longer receive funding from the Knesset for routine political activity nor receive advance funding ahead of the next election.

The law’s purpose is to deter MKs from switching sides during a given Knesset for opportunistic reasons, i.e., to prevent “political bribery.” For this reason, according to the law, if Roll resigns within 48 hours of Tuesday’s decision, he will have shown that his secession from his party was based on ideology. He, therefore, will be allowed to run in an existing party in the next election.

For example, former defense minister Yoav Gallant recently resigned from the Likud, reportedly because the Likud was considering announcing him as a “seceding MK.” Since Gallant resigned, he will be permitted to run in the Likud in the next election.

"Open the gates"

Roll argued in a book that was launched on Sunday that the Knesset needed to “open its gates” by lowering the electoral threshold. In the Home Committee meeting on Tuesday, Roll said, “Israeli society underwent a tremendous upheaval on October 7th. A society that had to struggle for basic things in order to ensure the future of the state.

From this schism, a camp emerged that wanted to leave behind everything that happened until October 6th. To create a liberal agenda, and understand that a dissonance has been created between what is happening outside and what is happening in the Knesset."

"This house [the Knesset] has remained closed to what is happening outside. We are at a critical crossroads in the country, and we need to harness all the lessons and awakenings after October 7th to create a new golden age, or else continue in the current state in reruns that will not only be a missed opportunity, but a historical injustice. This house quickly returned to the habits of October 6th."

"And so I say here: it won't help if every existing party gets another mandate or two. The rules have changed. It's time for the national majority to create a national agenda. Not politics of disqualifications, but essence. The only way this will happen is to lower the electoral threshold and open this closed club. We all swore allegiance to the State of Israel and not to the party leaders," Roll said.

Yesh Atid party coordinator, MK Merav Ben-Ari, responded, "If you want new politics, then step aside and let new leadership come in. We are all not the same people since October 7th and understand the magnitude of the responsibility. We need to know how to act responsibly as an opposition … unlike the previous opposition. There is a way to do things, this is not how you behave … the honest thing you need to do is resign and return the mandate to Yesh Atid," Ben-Ari said.

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In his initial announcement on Sunday, Roll said that he would be a “constructive opposition.” He had been increasingly at odds with party leader MK Yair Lapid since the Hamas massacre on October 7. Roll, who began his political career in the Likud, consistently expressed more hawkish views than Lapid on issues of national security.