Coalition holds bonding event to squelch infighting, as budget test looms

Coalition MKs gathered for a team-building event Friday hoping to put aside differences following a week of particularly heated infighting as the government prepares to pass an annual budget next month.

Gathering with members of eight of the nine parties that make up his coalition at a winery in Modi’in, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett used the opportunity to urge lawmakers to settle their differences behind closed doors rather than airing their grievances in the media, as has been the case in recent weeks.

The last week alone saw the release of leaked recordings of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked calling Foreign Minister Yair Lapid “shallow,” claiming he was carrying out “diplomatic blunders” for Bennett to clean up, while Defense Minister Benny Gantz was “even worse than Lapid.”

“I ask of you all… If there is an incident, go behind closed doors, fight a little, reconcile and move on, you do not need an audience — Ayelet and Yair,” Bennett said Friday, aiming his comments at Lapid and Shaked.

The squabbling was also within Bennett and Shaked’s seven-member Yamina party, where MK Abir Kara temporarily left the faction WhatsApp group after claiming it was “a party of idiots.”

The dispute centered around Kara’s contention during a Knesset hearing on Wednesday that fining businesses that aren’t accessible to people with disabilities was akin to “communism.” His colleague, Yamina MK Shirley Pinto, slammed his comment on Twitter, calling it “cheap populism.”

That same day saw back-and-forth statements between the center-left Labor and centrist Blue and White parties over Gantz’s decision to blacklist six Palestinian human rights organizations in addition to advancing plans for roughly 3,000 settlement homes — moves that both sparked international outcry.

After Labor party head Merav Michaeli criticized the lack of coordination for the moves, Blue and White shot back that she should not be involving herself in security matters, in a remark that was criticized as chauvinist.

אחרי גיבוש מוצלח, משעשע ושמח.
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At Friday’s get-together though, coalition members were all smiles as they sought to put their differences behind them.

Shaked was spotted embracing both Gantz and Lapid with Hebrew media reporting that she apologized to each of them for the leaked recording. In remarks that were also leaked to the press, Shaked explained that she had made the comments after thinking Lapid had been responsible for a slew of negative reports about her.

The unlikely comity that brought the coalition together despite wide ideological differences to replace longtime premier Benjamin Netanyahu in June has been dented in recent weeks as a deadline for passing a new budget nears.

Passing a budget will be the most critical test the coalition has faced, and succeeding in doing so will likely mean stabilizing the government for the near future. If a budget is not passed by November 14, snap elections will be called.

“This team-building event catches us at a particularly noisy moment. The timing [of this background noise] was predictable but first of all, I want to put things into proportion: in every coalition there’s noise,” Bennett said.

“We have critical days ahead of us. The other side has one task: to prevent us from passing a budget,” he added. “In this mission of theirs, all means are kosher — no exercise will not be tried on us, no fake story will not be told, no spin will not be broadcast.”

ממשלת סאחיסטן ביום גיבוש pic.twitter.com/0zUnuO5D48

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Lapid told the group that he would not let his spat with Shaked distract him from the goal of passing a budget and continuing to operate on behalf of the Israeli people. “The quarrels, leaks and recordings do not interest us now,” he told reporters.

A majority of the coalition was present for Friday’s event, which included a standup performance by comedian Adir Miller, who poked fun at some of the coalition’s gaffes thus far.

Not present were members of the Islamist Ra’am party, who were attending a government ceremony marking the 45th anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre in which Border Police brutally killed 48 Arab men, women in children for violating a wartime curfew in 1956.

Miller quipped that Ra’am head Mansour Abbas was serving as designated survivor for the government.