Blue and White predict: Edelstein will enter plenum to approve Knesset committee establishment • Reason: He will not want to "stretch the rope" for fear of petitions to the High Court • Negev Minister: "I have never seen such a situation"

• Knesset Attorney General, Il Yinon // Photo Archive: Noam Rivkin Fenton

MKs in blue and blue believe that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein will join the Knesset next week to approve the establishment of a Knesset committee to discuss the immunity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is because they say Edelstein would not want to "pull the rope too much." Edelstein did not address the issue, and, in the absence of information, the Knesset said, various hypotheses were made.

Netanyahu announces: "I will ask for immunity" // Photo: Ami Shamir

One speculation was that Adelstein would join the Knesset next week because he fears a blue whitewash to the High Court - forcing the decision on him. On the other hand, there were estimates that the meeting would be postponed to the week beginning January 26, because many heads of state will arrive in Jerusalem next week to mark International Holocaust Day. .

Meanwhile, Knesset Speaker Eyal Yinon yesterday delivered to the High Court his response to the Likud movement's petition and MK Miki Zohar, who demanded that he refrain from engaging in Knesset committee discussions on PM's immunity, because of his conflict of interest She is part of the prosecutor's team dealing with PM cases.

While Yinon wrote that for the sake of caution and for fear of a seeming conflict of interest, he does not intend to attend or engage in the immunity hearings themselves, but he objects to the disqualification of his opinion.

According to him, "the allegation is devoid of any basis, both because the said opinion is not at all about the discretion of the Attorney General and his staff in deciding to indict the Prime Minister, and because it does not deal with the proceedings of the immunity hearings which will be held in the Knesset Committee."

According to Yinon, the conflict of interest was raised only after the conclusion of the opinion was not to the mind of the petitioners, "even though all relevant details of the alleged conflict of interest have been made public in many different past and well known contexts."

Yanun added that "this fact indicates that the whole purpose of the claim is to undermine the legitimacy of the Knesset institution to the Knesset and personally discourage it from performing its duties to the best of its judgment and without fear, and in this way try to cancel the opinion."

Minister of Regional Cooperation, Tzahi Hanegbi, said yesterday on Network B that "I am a veteran of the Knesset. There has never been a situation in which a majority imposes a debate on immunity, in the post-Knesset dissolution and in a political forum that announces its positions in opposition to the ruling and the law."