Netanyahu “used security to solve political problems” and “made political survival the top priority,” Lapid said.
By LAHAV HARKOVUpdated: NOVEMBER 20, 2018 02:00Bennett and Netanyahu shake hands in Knesset (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Leading opposition members mocked Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked for backing down from their ultimatum that Bennett must become defense minister. Opposition leaders called for an election to be held as soon as possible in their faction meetings on Monday.Zionist Union chairman Avi Gabbay called the Bayit Yehudi party, which means the Jewish Home, “the surrendering home.”“Netanyahu and Bennett ran away from an election because they’re afraid of change. There is nothing behind Netanyahu’s talk of security. It’s just political spin,” Gabbay said. “The people speechifying for the past week about Israel’s security aren’t doing security. They’re doing politics.”Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called the past week’s political events a “shameful circus,” and said those involved only care about keeping their positions in the government.Netanyahu “used security to solve political problems” and “made political survival the top priority,” Lapid said.He added that Bennett and Shaked “admit this government was weak and surrendered to terror...they didn’t resign because of it.”According to Lapid, “this government does not remember that there are citizens. It doesn’t remember that there are values. It needs to go home.”“If this wasn’t sad it would be funny,” Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg said.“Bennett’s incitement was flipped back to him, and they’ve learned nothing. The minute Netanyahu threatened to stain them as ‘leftist traitors,’ he folded them like origami”, she added.Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman wrote on Twitter that “Bennett’s despite to kill, imprison, steal land and lives, and occupy is frightening.”
“Two arrogant pyromaniacs competed for the defense portfolio – more accurately, the war portfolio – and they are stuck with the person seen in recent days as more moderate...I know with certainty that the will and desire for life and liberation in the Palestinian people in Gaza will win,” Touma-Sliman said.
