Bennett made the remarks in the Knesset plenary after opposition lawmakers managed to collect 40 signatures, forcing the prime minister to appear for a symbolic hearing on his performance. The prime minister delivered his speech about an hour after another member of his party announced that he was leaving the coalition, leaving him with a 59-member minority in the Knesset. “There are members of the coalition who have not yet internalized the importance of time,” Bennett said on the one-year anniversary of his administration. “I call on the members of the coalition who are preparing to vote against the government, we have one or two weeks to clarify it and then we can continue 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, noting that he had agreed to form a coalition with many of his left-wing opponents only after former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly failed to form a coalition. despite sending Israel into a whirlwind of four consecutive elections and ready to send the country to a fifth parliamentary vote. Get the Times of Israel Daily E-mail and never miss our top stories By registering, you agree to the terms Bennett stressed his government’s policy toward the Gaza Strip, which he said has been responsible for a calmer period for southerners for years. He compared it to the Gaza war in 2021 during the last days of Netanyahu’s rule, which also coincided with riots in Jewish Arab cities across the country. View of the dam along the Israel-Gaza border on December 8, 2021. (Flash90) The prime minister criticizes Netanyahu and the opposition for their behavior last year. “You are inciting all day long instead of fighting the enemy,” Bennett said, casting particular doubt on how Likud criticized his cooperation with the Islamist Ra’am party, the first independent Arab party to join a governing coalition in Israeli history. . “I saw [Likud] MK Israel Katz is screaming [Ra’am chair] Mansour Abbas. He said Abbas was like [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar “, continued Bennett, accusing Katz of ignoring the fact that Netanyahu himself had secretly hosted Abbas several times in his official residence, in an attempt to persuade President Ra’am to join a right-wing coalition under Likud leadership. As the prospects for such a coalition seemed to grow in the spring of 2021, Likud’s media reported on the media, which gradually warmly praised Abbas for his willingness to condemn the terrorist attacks on Israelis and to focus on non-political issues. in the Palestinian. But they quickly turned to Raham after the party joined Bennett’s coalition last June, regularly calling members of the party “supporters of terrorism.” Bennett, in his speech to the plenary, expressed pride in his cooperation with Abbas. “I met Mansour Abbas as a man,” he said. “I am not shy.” He further added that his government’s decision to allow the religious nationalist Jerusalem Flag March to pass through the Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, despite international pressure to redirect the rally to a seemingly less provocative one. The government also managed to overcome the last waves of the pandemic without imposing a lockdown, passed a budget for the first time in three years, increased military salaries and helped reduce crime in Arab communities by 40%, Bennett said. He accused Netanyahu of operating a “poison machine” and admitted that his government had failed to deal with it enough to prevent the Yamina MK Idit Silman from distancing itself. The former coalition whip announced its resignation from the ruling bloc in April, shrinking its size to just 60 MKs in the Knesset. Bennett later recalled how Netanyahu had warned the day the government was formed that he could not stand up to 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 proved to be false. The Jews participating in the Flag March pass through the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem on May 29, 2022, as Israel celebrates Jerusalem Day. (Ahmad Gharabli / AFP) Speaking immediately after Bennett, Netanyahu scoffed at his successor for giving himself such good grades when much of the prime minister’s staff had left him. Several of Bennett’s advisers resigned last month as the coalition appeared to be coming to an end. “You are not fighting for the country. “You are only fighting for your seat,” Netanyahu said, again criticizing Bennett for working with Raham and Abbas. “Because you – Bennett, [Foreign Minister Yair] “Lapid and Abbas are not fighting for our country, the people of Israel are afraid for their fate,” Netanyahu said, stressing the recent wave of terrorism and rising costs. The former prime minister rejected the idea that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the cause of the current economic crisis, claiming that he had managed to prevent the country from a similar downturn when world markets were stirred. “Blackmail and your protectionist government are collapsing. “His days are numbered,” Netanyahu said, accusing Bennett of “stealing the credit” for his previous policies that preceded the year of silence on the Gaza border. He mocked Bennett’s recent appeal to the “silent Zionist majority” to support his government, saying the Israelis were not really silent and that they wanted Yamina’s leader to “go home.” Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Knesset on June 13, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel / FLASH90) The meeting ended with a symbolic vote on Bennett’s response to the opposition criticism. As all the remaining 59 members were not present, the coalition did not have a majority, with the result that the coalition’s MPs left the plenary session before the count was held. The vote was a symbolic 54-0, in favor of the opposition. However, the much more practical blow to the coalition came hours earlier, when Orbach, of Bennett’s Yamina party, announced his resignation. Orbach, in a statement, accused “extremist, anti-Zionist elements” such as the Arab MK Mazen Ghanaim (Ra’am) and Ghaida Rinawie 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 of “raising [Israelis’] spirits, “he said, adding that he would not vote next week to dissolve the Knesset and call early elections. Instead, he promised to work to form an alternative “patriotic” coalition in the current parliament – a big order, as the Knesset still appears to contain the majority of MKs who refuse to join a coalition with Netanyahu.
