Likud MKs have ‘had enough’ of Jewish Home, top lawmaker says

Coalition chairman David Bitan (Likud) stepped up to defend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, as an internal political squabble with key coalition partner Jewish Home showed no signs of abating.

According to Bitan, the lawmakers from the ruling Likud party were fed up with the right-wing party and its leader Naftali Bennett, whom he accused of constantly undermining the prime minister.

The education minister and his party should “respect the Likud and its platform,” and stop making statements damaging to the government, Bitan told Radio Kol Chai.

“Bennett has challenged [the position of] Netanyahu within the Likud for a long time, and I can tell you that we Knesset members are tired of it,” Bitan said.

“Apparently he’s forgotten that Likud has 30 seats [out of the Knesset’s 120; Jewish Home holds eight], and we aren’t here to serve his interests,” he charged. “We have had enough of this, and won’t put up with it. I can tell you unequivocally that Likud MKs — myself included — are not prepared to take part in this ritual.”

Bitan’s remarks came shortly after Jewish Home harshly criticized Netanyahu for seeking to broaden his coalition via the inclusion of opposition parties, and his handling of plans to reform the Israel Broadcasting Authority. The party warned the prime minister in a statement that it would no longer be his “punching bag.”

“Bringing [opposition leader Isaac] Boujie [Herzog] in is like shooting inside an armored personnel carrier,” the Jewish Home said Monday. “Before elections [Netanyahu] always sucks up to the right-wing and religious voters, and afterwards he casts them away with derision.”

“The days of [us being] a punching bag are over.”

The criticism came on the heels of a tempestuous Sunday cabinet session in which ministers sparred over plans to reform the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Infighting erupted over the new corporation’s reporters, with Science Minister Ofir Akunis complaining that seven of them belonged to the Jewish Home’s religious-nationalist camp. Justice Minister and Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked shot back, calling Likud MKs “a bunch of crybabies” who need to “stop complaining.”

Likud also issued a statement Monday slamming Bennett for attempting to undermine Likud’s authority and accusing him of misrepresenting his right-wing constituents.

“Bennett is panicking because he knows the truth. [He] was elected by right-wing voters, but works to preserve the legacy of [nationalist Palestinian poet Mahmoud] Darwish in Israeli schools, and fights to preserve the left’s hegemony in the media,” the party said.

“Bennett has long left the APC, along with his brother [opposition member Yair] Lapid, he is constantly digging tunnels underneath Likud,” the statement charged, in reference to Bennett’s criticism of Netanyahu for his handling of Hamas attack tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel.

The Likud party also claimed efforts to shutter the staunchly pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom daily were self-serving and detrimental to press freedom.

Long-sought reforms of the cash-strapped IBA coalesced into a plan to form the new broadcasting corporation, passed in a Knesset law in 2014 and backed by then-communications minister Gilad Erdan and Netanyahu, who himself currently serves as communications minister.