The Knesset opened the summer session after a 39-day spring recess, excluding two special sessions. The session was twelve minutes, perhaps the shortest in Knesset history. The no confidence motions and most of the bills that were to be discussed were all withdrawn in order to allow the MKs to attend the funeral of Benzion Netanyahu.
Non-Bills Summary
- Speaker Rivlin opened the summer session. He announced that the summer session, scheduled until July 25, will most likely be this government’s last and that the government will not survive until the next scheduled elections on October 22, 2013. He stated that he will send the Knesset back into recess the day the new election date becomes final. He went on to eulogize Professor Benzion Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s father, who had passed away earlier that day.
- Justice, Law and Constitution Committee Chairman Rotem (Y.B.) asked the Knesset to approve his committee’s request to split a bill into two. The Knesset approved the request 12-0.
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This was the Knesset Jeremy English translation protocol of the Knesset’sApril 30, 2012, session.
Official protocol in Hebrew: http://www.knesset.gov.il/plenum/data/01998512.doc
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
I didn’t know. Barch Dayan Haemet.
Did you mean “will not survive” literally, or simply that it is advantageous to Bibi to call early elections? Nice to get another day off. Is the official term four years or five now?
I was translating Rivlin of course.
Bibi is calling elections because he thinks Liberman wants to call early elections. Liberman wants early elections because he thanks Bibi wants to call early elections. Go make sense of that.
Thank you. I suppose it makes at least as much sense as anything in politics.
I understand now that I confused the term of the President with the term of the Knesset; the fomer five and the latter four, barring early elections.
Do you think that they might bring back the direct election of the PM? Was is stopped because it helped the smaller parties instead of the larger ones?
Direct elections created a situation where the prime minister didn’t come from the largest party. The move back to the previous version didn’t help either because the right and left blocks are still more important than largest party.