(JNS) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday evening that a bill calling for a “special state commission of inquiry” to investigate “the events of Oct. 7 and the circumstances that led to them” had passed a Knesset committee vote earlier in the day and would be voted on by the Knesset.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved the bill, proposed by Likud Knesset member Ariel Kallner. It will be presented for a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday.

The bill calls for the selection of three members by the coalition and three members by the opposition. “The composition of the commission’s members will be determined equally: half by the coalition and half by the opposition,” Netanyahu stressed.

“We are talking about an independent commission of inquiry with full powers, exactly as defined in the Commissions of Inquiry Law,” said Netanyahu.

It will include experts in security, academia and law, and bereaved parents will serve as observers, he continued.

Coalition members have compared the special commission to the one US President George W. Bush created in late 2002 to investigate the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

Kallner told Israel’s Channel 14 last week that the 9/11 Commission only had 10 members and is “considered one of the most successful committees in the history of investigative committees in the world.”

“Following the greatest disaster in our history, we are acting exactly as the United States acted after the greatest disaster in American history,” said Netanyahu on Monday.

Amid the ruins of Kibbutz Be’eri after Hamas terrorists attacked, Dec. 20, 2023. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The prime minister and his government have come under pressure to establish a State Commission of Inquiry into the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. It has resisted, insisting that such a commission, whose members would be selected by the president of the Supreme Court, would be biased.

A special commission of inquiry will earn the confidence of the widest cross-section of the Israeli public as possible, the prime minister said.

While it was within his power to compose a governmental board of inquiry entirely determined by his government, he had chosen not to, believing that such a commission would have “gained the trust of only one part of the public,” he continued.

“By the same token, a commission of inquiry whose composition was determined exclusively by [Israeli Supreme Court] Justice Yitzhak Amit, as the opposition proposes, would have had only a small portion of the public believing in it,” he added.

“I say to the opposition: By all means, bring whatever experts you want, ask whatever you want, investigate whomever you want, including me,” said Netanyahu. “If one truly wants to reach the truth, if one truly does not want to allow a cover-up, how can one oppose this?”

However, the opposition expressed its disapproval of the plan, charging it with being “political.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party, in a video post on X on Monday, said that those who were “directly responsible for the disaster will appoint a whitewash committee whose only purpose is to clear themselves of guilt.”

“In Netanyahu and Kallner’s proposal for the inquiry committee, the government has control over the discussions, the summoning of witnesses, and setting the agenda. They will investigate the late [Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin long before they investigate Netanyahu,” he wrote.

Lapid was referring to earlier remarks by the prime minister that decision-making related to the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s and the 2005 disengagement—Israel’s evacuation of the Gaza Strip—should be examined by the committee.

“It is important that the public be exposed to the discussions and assessments of all the actors. It is important that the public sees everything with its own eyes and judges,” said Netanyahu.

A man whose father was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 searches the rubble of his home for family mementos in Kibbutz Be’eri, Nov. 30, 2023. Photo by Chen Schimmel/Flash90.

During a discussion in the Knesset State Control Committee on Monday, MK Benny Gantz, chairman of the Blue and White Party, said an investigative committee “must not be political,” and called for a State Commission of Inquiry along traditional lines. A vote in the committee to advance such a commission was defeated by a 5-4 vote.

The bill to advance the government’s version passed in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation with the sole objection being from New Hope Party MK Ze’ev Elkin, who opposed a clause in the bill that stated if the opposition failed to appoint any members to the commission, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana of the Likud Party would do so.

According to Ynet, Netanyahu is willing to consider changing this clause to attract opposition support. Instead of Ohana, Supreme Court Justice Amit will choose the opposition members of the commission.

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