Education Minister and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett on Monday lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also acting defense minister, over what he said were Netanyahu's lax security policies.
A day after a terrorist shot seven Israelis near the settlement of Ofra in Samaria, including a woman in her 30th week of pregnancy, Bennett said: "Mr. Defense Minister, change the policies and restore deterrence."
Speaking at a Habayit Hayehudi faction meeting, Bennett remarked that "shackles of 'fake law' are keeping us from taking action. We are calling on the prime minister to regulate the status of Ofra immediately. All we need to do is summon the attorney general and approve it," Bennett said.
At a closed-door meeting of the Likud, Netanyahu responded to Bennett's remarks.
"There is a prime minister here who, for 12 years, has worked with two very difficult American presidents. … We are managing [the security situation] now so we can secure a green light for the settlements because a campaign is being waged against us over settlements we've already built," Netanyahu said.
The prime minister said that while it might appear that regulating the status of settlements was "simple," it was more complicated than it appeared.
Netanyahu said his government was trying to find the right approach.
"No government can throw off these pressures and maneuver around them," the prime minister said.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu's associates said that he and Bennett had made peace after a recent spat over Bennett's wife's dessert business, which erupted following a report that Netanyahu had asked the Walla news site to run an item about claims that Bennett's wife had worked as a pastry chef in nonkosher restaurants.
