The mudslinging between Blue and White and Likud continued unabated Wednesday.
In an interview with Israel Hayom that will appear in full over the weekend, Likud MK Osnat Mark castigated Blue and White leader and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, saying: "The prime minister didn't foresee the magnitude of their craziness. They entered the government to topple [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu]. Israel above all else wasn't really what they cared about. They fight against him all day long. The only thing that interests them is protests. Nothing else. These are our [coalition] partners? These are leftists."
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According to Mark, "Finding an exit ramp [from the coalition deal] is important. The prime minister must not pass the baton to Gantz. It would be a tragedy for generations to come. Gantz isn't capable of being prime minister. He doesn't feel like getting up for school. It's madness. If there were elections today, he wouldn't pass the electoral threshold."
Mark claims that Netanyahu "feels that if heaven forbid he passes the baton to Benny Gantz, a disaster could happen. Gantz doesn't have an understanding of basic things. The job is too big for him. This isn't a regular country."
She adds: "We are on the way to elections. Not now. In March, the Knesset will be dispersed and in June-July there will be elections."
Touching on the right's improvement in the polls, Mark says, "[Yamina Chairman] Naftali Bennett is one of the people the State of Israel will be disappointed by if he reaches a key position. He seems impulsive to me. I see him speaking before the Knesset plenum and throwing tantrums like a child whose toy was taken away. Buddy, stop for a second. You wrote a book so now you can be prime minister?"
As for the government's handling of the coronavirus, "it's not a catastrophe," Mark argues. It's a bad situation. A catastrophe would be if the prime minister, finance minister were sitting in the ivory tower, not doing a thing."
Addressing the recent dispute over marking the anniversary of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, Mark says: "The Rabin murder was a despicable murder and there's no disagreement on that. But they took it too far. [Actress and comedienne] Orna Banai said, 'You murdered and inherited.' The gall of her; what do you mean inherited?! We went to the ballots and voted. Who did we murder?! We murdered Rabin?! The nerve. They own the story. Everywhere you go, they changed the name to Rabin. There are other people who did things for the country."
Q: Are you talking about naming squares and streets after him?
"Yes. There are other people who have done things. [Former prime minister Menachem] Begin did more than a little for the people of Israel and doesn't even have a tree named after him."
Q: You're saying there's too much memorialization?
"Obviously. Hospitals have become Rabin, squares have become Rabin, streets have become Rabin. Enough, we get the idea."
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