Fragile Israeli government braces for chill as Knesset winter term begins
The Knesset’s winter session, which opened yesterday, is expected to test the precarious coalition of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
“Contain yourselves for a few more weeks. Don’t pick fights on Twitter. It’s not worth it. If you shake the coalition up now, the people of Israel will not forgive you for it, and your electorate will not forgive you.” That was Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s firm message to the members of the coalition Oct. 4, about an hour before the start of the Knesset’s winter session.
Lapid, who is also alternate prime minister, made these remarks at a meeting of his Yesh Atid faction. He was referring, among other things, to a Twitter feud between Minister of the Interior Ayelet Shaked and the Meretz faction.
It all began with the Oct. 3 meeting between Meretz ministers and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Media reports claim that during the meeting, Abbas expressed a desire to meet with Shaked, one of the most right-wing members of the coalition, and a person especially close to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. In response, Shaked tweeted almost immediately, “It will not happen. I will not meet with a Holocaust denier who sues Israel Defense Forces soldiers in The Hague [ICC] and pays murderers of Jews."
Shaked could, of course, have ignored the visit to Ramallah, just as Bennett did. Despite the damage it might cause him on the right, Bennett realized that there was no way to stop the meeting from taking place, so it was best to ignore it. In contrast, Shaked decided to milk the event for political and media buzz. The question is: Why?
