Bennett: Netanyahu ‘surrendered and erased sovereignty’ from coalition platform

Naftali Bennett says Netanyahu “erased sovereignty” from the coalition platform, which “they published like thieves in the night” late Wednesday. “He erased the words Judea and Samaria from the platform.”

“Maybe it offended the sensibilities” of Gantz and other leftists, he suggests bitterly.

Says Bennett: “He promised for a year, time and again, that he would extend full sovereignty to all settlements in Judea and Samaria. That wasn’t an election promise. It was the election promise of Netanyahu. But in the last few days the PA threatened that if it appeared in the platform, they’d break off contacts.”

Bennett says the EU and above all Gantz and Ashkenazi also threatened him. “So Netanyahu surrendered, and erased sovereignty from the platform.”

The Yamina leader says Netanyahu has also abandoned all plans for reforms to curb the power of the Supreme Court.

“He wants weak political midgets at his side” — and not a “strong… principled right like us.”

“He’s splintered away from religious and secular Zionism — from the people who were the most loyal to him.”

Yamina, says Bennett, will be a potent, “courageous” alternative to Netanyahu’s government.

Bennett’s colleague, former justice minister Ayelet Shaked, says Netanyahu “sold Salah al-Din Street” in east Jerusalem, where the Justice Ministry is located, to the political left. Blue and White’s Avi Nissenkorn is to be the new justice minister.

Likud responds to the Yamina press conference by deriding Bennett, saying all his complaints stem from the fact that Netanyahu chose not to give him the post of health minister.