Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs his embattled coalition chair David Bitan, in the first public statement on the criminal investigation into the top Likud MK.
Netanyahu also argues the coalition is stable and will continue to hold.
“David Bitan enjoys the presumption of innocence,” Netanyahu says of the coalition chairman, who is suspected of receiving bribes, fraud, money laundering and breach of trust.
“I respect him, and I really like him,” Netanyahu says. “He’s doing excellent work as coalition whip.”
Speaking to Israeli reporters at the Israeli embassy in Paris minutes after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu rejects reports that the governing coalition is in danger.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and David Bitan sharing a toast at a Likud faction meeting on February 27, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“They’ve been saying for 10 years that the coalition will collapse tomorrow,” he says. “I don’t see the coalition falling apart.”
The prime minister refuses to discuss in detail the various legislative proposals that are currently being debated in the Knesset, saying only that the crisis around the controversial mini-market law “will be solved.”
The ultra-Orthodox coalition parties are pushing for the bill — which would shutter mini-markets on Saturdays — to be voted into law, but the Yisrael Beytenu party opposes it.
— Raphael Ahren
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