Lapid and Bennett spar over money for settlements

Naftali Bennett says Yair Lapid “is simply lying” when he says Jewish Home transferred lots of money to small settlements.

Lapid says transferring money to small, “very extremist” outposts, is counterproductive and “ends up hurting Ma’ale Adumim” and other settlement blocs, which Lapid believes Israel should keep in any future peace deal.

The Lapid-Bennett face-off is extremely nasty — underlining the extent to which these two party leaders, who used to constantly refer to each other as brothers, have fallen out.

Where did the partnership go wrong, host Yonit Levy asks. “They became extreme,” says Lapid of Bennett’s Jewish Home.

“I won’t let you stir up” the public against the settlers, Bennett insists.

Aryeh Deri says “our party never disgraced the symbols of the state of Israel, but that the tefillin, the tallit, the belief in one God” are all things “leaders some of these parties” are disgracing.

He is answering a question about a prominent Shas rabbi who said last week that the national anthem “is a stupid song.”

Channel 2 takes an advertising break. We think there’s maybe 40 more minutes of this to go.