Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged barbs Monday during a special Knesset session on the COVID resurgence, accusing each other's respective governments of mishandling the pandemic in Israel.
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Bennett appeared before the plenum after the opposition, which labeled the emergency session "The Ben-Gurion Airport fiasco," secured the signatures of 40 lawmakers to force the prime minister to publicly debate potentially reinstating coronavirus measures at Israel's main international gateway, which has been struggling for weeks with overcrowding and testing arrivals.
Bennett accused the opposition of having become "the new sourpusses," using a Hebrew word that also means pickles, referencing the former prime minister's 2017 "pickle speech" in which he accused the Left of being constantly disgruntled.
"We are fixing what you have neglected and all you do is complain and whine," he said. "You assumed the role of sourpusses so quickly that even when you see good things, you can't be supportive.
"We sealed the gaps [in the vaccine supply] that you left behind, but we don't feel the need to call a press conference over every phone call with [Albert] Bourla," Bennett mocked in reference to Netanyahu's repeated public briefings over his conversations with Pfizer's CEO.
The prime minister also accused his predecessor of neglecting the tensions with the Gaza Strip, mismanaging the Hezbollah threat, and undermining ties with Jordan.
"What is the Israeli interest for the sake of which Netanyahu destroyed the relationship with Jordan?" he asked. "We are repairing this relationship which is an Israeli national security interest."
In his own speech, Netanyahu hit back at Bennett, blaming him for the failure to prevent the spread of the delta variant in Israel, leading to a spike in morbidity.
"I have one question for the government of deceit: How did you succeed in spoiling our success in battling the coronavirus so quickly? We handed you a country in the best situation in the world; our great success was praised all over the world. And what did you do with our great success? You simply kicked over the full pail."
He continued: "What, for heaven's sake, are you doing to fight the coronavirus outbreak? The answer is, you're doing nothing ... Instead of making real decisions, all you know how to do is one thing, tweet and pose for selfies."
Hitting back at Bennett's accusations of inaction during the pandemic, Netanyahu said: "We worked around the clock to bring millions of vaccines to Israel while you gave interviews to every channel and said that the vaccines wouldn't arrive, and that we didn't need them at all, and called to open up everything.
"Thanks to our actions, we brought Israel back to life, but because of your failure, we have to sit with masks in every closed space, and you can't even accomplish that."
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