Shaked to PM: Dissolving the government ‘a historic mistake’

Justice Minister calls on PM not to topple right-wing government over what she calls an ‘imaginary crisis.’

By Nitsan Keidar, INN

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked talked this morning about the coalition crisis and called on the prime minister not to topple the right-wing government.

“This is an imaginary crisis,” she wrote on Twitter. “Prime Minister, to topple a right-wing government over nothing would be a historic mistake similar in size to the fall of the Shamir government in 1992.”

Shaked was interviewed this morning on the haredi radio station Kol Barama and added, “It’s really frustrating. To dismantle the government is a mistake that later everyone will regret, I hope that the prime minister or the defense minister will come to their senses. It’s in the hands of both of them.”

“There are two options. Either the defense minister tells Sofa Landver to abstain in the vote on the Draft Law, or the prime minister decides not to fire Sofa Landver, even if she votes against it. That, indeed, is very unusual, but is possible if weighed against the dissolution of the government,” Shaked added.
Yisrael Beytenu Chairman, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, said yesterday that if Landver is fired from her post as punishment for opposing the law, his party would quit the coalition, leaving the coalition with 61 seats. Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would not agree to a coalition without Yisrael Beytenu.

According to Shaked, the assumption is that the draft law will pass its preliminary reading. “The moment the law passes, the responsibility for the government and the preservation of the coalition is only in the hands of the defense minister and the prime minister.”

Shaked noted that the public does not understand the reason for the coalition crisis. “Dragging the State of Israel into elections every two or three years makes us a banana republic, and we are essentially spitting in the faces of the voters. No one understands what the crisis is and why the government should be dismantled.”