Coalition whip Ofir Katz on Wednesday informed fellow Likud MK Yuli Edelstein that he is being removed from his position on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee effective immediately.

Katz explained that the decision was made after Edelstein voted in favor of a West Bank settlement annexation bill that was boycotted by the Likud party last week, as well due to as “his repeated violations of faction discipline.”

Edelstein broke ranks to vote in favor of the annexation bill, casting a decisive vote and helping it scrape by 25-24, embarrassing the Netanyahu government. In a statement, he said that he supported the measure because “Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our homeland is the order of the day” and called on “all Zionist factions to vote in favor.”

In addition to being removed from his post on the committee, Edelstein “will not be able to introduce private legislation and speak on behalf of the Likud faction in the plenum for two months,” Katz’s office said in a statement.

Both Edelstein’s spokesperson and a coalition insider had independently confirmed Edelstein’s pending ouster to The Times of Israel last week.

In a statement at the time, Edelstein said that “the public already knows that I am a man of my word.”

“If my entire sin was that I stood up for the Land of Israel and voted in favor of applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], then I am proud of that. Just as I am proud that I prevented [Haredi draft] evasion and that I am fighting for genuine ultra-Orthodox conscription,” the veteran lawmaker said in a statement.

“Even outside the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I will continue to fight for equal conscription and for the Land of Israel. Any such dismissal is a moral badge of honor for me. Anyone who thinks that this deters me is........

© The Times of Israel