Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned on Monday that his hesitant coalition would disintegrate completely in a week or two if a growing number of outspoken members of the ruling bloc do not return to full co-operation with the alliance.
Bennett made remarks in the Knesset plenum after opposition lawmakers managed to collect 40 signatures, forcing the prime minister to attend a symbolic hearing on his presentation.
The prime minister delivered a speech about an hour after another member of his own party announced he was leaving the coalition, leaving it with a minority of 59 members in the Knesset.
“There are members of the coalition who have not yet mastered the importance of the hour,” Bennett said on the one-year anniversary of his government. “I urge coalition members who are determined to vote against the government, we have a week or two to clarify this and then we can go on for a long time. If not – then we can not [continue].
“The choice today is between chaos and stability, between paralysis and growth,” Bennett said, recalling that he had agreed to form a coalition with many of his left-wing rivals after former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition many times. Israel is through a whirlwind of four consecutive elections and is ready to send the country to a fifth parliamentary vote.
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Bennett emphasized his government’s policy towards the Gaza Strip, which he said was responsible for the quietest period for southerners in years. He compared it to the Gaza war in 2021 in the last days of Netanyahu’s rule, which also coincided with riots in Jewish-Arab cities across the country.
View of the barrier on the border between Israel and Gaza, December 8, 2021 (Flash90)
The prime minister continued to criticize Netanyahu and the opposition for their behavior over the past year. “You are inciting all day instead of fighting the enemy,” Bennett said, noting in particular how Likud criticized his partnership with the Islamist party Raam, the first independent Arab party to join a ruling coalition in Israeli history.
“I saw [Likud] MK Israel Katz shouts [Ra’am chair] Mansour Abbas. He said Abbas was like [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar, “Bennett continued, accusing Katz of ignoring the fact that Netanyahu himself had secretly hosted Abbas several times at his official residence in an attempt to persuade President Raam to join a right-wing coalition led by Likud.
As the prospects for such a coalition appear to be growing in the spring of 2021, Likud lawmakers were quoted in the media as gradually warming to Abbas, praising him for his readiness to condemn terrorist attacks on Israelis and focus on civilian issues. and not on the Palestinian question. But they quickly turned to Raam after the party joined Bennett’s coalition last June, calling members of the party “supporters of terror” on a regular basis.
Bennett, in his plenary speech, expressed pride in his partnership with Abbas. “I met Mansour Abbas as a man,” he said. “I am not ashamed.”
He then pointed to his government’s decision to skip the march on the Jerusalem flag of religious nationalists through Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, despite international pressure to redirect the rally to a seemingly less provocative path. The government has also managed to get through the last waves of the pandemic without imposing a blockade, adopting a budget for the first time in three years, raising soldiers’ salaries and helping reduce crime in Arab communities by 40 per cent, Bennett said.
He accused Netanyahu of driving a “poison machine” and acknowledged that his government had failed to resist enough to prevent Yamina MP Idit Silman from fleeing. The former coalition whip announced his resignation from the ruling bloc in April, shrinking to just 60 members of the Knesset.
Bennett then recalled how Netanyahu warned on the day the government was formed that he would not be able to oppose the Biden administration to prevent the reopening of a US consulate in Jerusalem or the signing of a nuclear deal. Both of these predictions have so far turned out to be incorrect.
The Jews participating in the Flag March pass through the gates of Damascus to the Old City of Jerusalem on May 29, 2022, when Israel celebrates Jerusalem Day. (Ahmad Garabli / AFP)
Speaking immediately after Bennett, Netanyahu mocked his successor for giving such good marks when many of the prime minister’s staff had left. Several of Bennett’s advisers have resigned in the past month as the coalition appears to be coming to an end.
“You are not fighting for the country. You are only fighting for your place, “Netanyahu said, again blaming Bennett for his cooperation with Raam and Abbas.
“Because you, Bennett, [Foreign Minister Yair] Lapid and Abbas are not fighting for our country, the citizens of Israel are afraid of their fate, “Netanyahu continued, emphasizing the recent wave of terrorism and rising costs.
The former prime minister dismissed the notion that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the cause of the current economic crisis, saying he had managed to steer the country away from a similar downturn as global markets faltered.
“Your blackmailing and protectionist government is falling apart. His days are numbered, “Netanyahu said, accusing Bennett of” stealing credit “for his previous policies ahead of the year of calm on the Gaza border.
He scoffed at Bennett’s recent call for a “silent Zionist majority” to support his government, saying the Israelis were not really silent and wanted Yamina’s leader to “go home”.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Knesset on June 13, 2022 (Yonatan Sindel / FLASH90)
The session ended with a symbolic vote on Bennett’s responses to opposition criticism. As not all of the other 59 members were present, the coalition did not have a majority, prompting coalition lawmakers to leave the plenary before the calculation. The vote was a symbolic 54-0 in favor of the opposition.
However, a much more practical blow to the coalition was struck hours earlier, when Orbach of Bennett’s Yamina party announced his resignation.
In a statement, Orbach accused “extremist, anti-Zionist elements” such as Arab lawmakers Mazen Ganaim (Raam) and Gaida Rinavi Zoabi (Meretz) of pulling the coalition “in problematic directions” and holding it hostage. ”
While Orbach, a longtime ally of Bennett, said the coalition had failed in its main mission to “raise [Israelis’] He explained that he would not vote next week to disperse the Knesset and start early elections. Instead, he promised to work for an alternative coalition with a “patriotic spirit” in the existing parliament – difficult, given that the Knesset still appears to contain a majority of lawmakers who refuse to join a coalition with Netanyahu.
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