Bennett Flings Sourpuss Line Back at Netanyahu

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett shot back at Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday after some mocking criticism.

“You’ve become the new sourpusses. What you’ve neglected, we are fixing, and you are the new sourpusses. You just grumble, complain and whine,” Bennett was quoted by The Times of Israel as saying in the Knesset.

It was a playback of Netanyahu’s own attack on the left in 2017, when he derided them as “pickles” for their perpetually sour look while he was in office.

Netanyahu had a comeback: “One question for Bennett and Lapid’s fraudulent government – how did you manage in such a short time to spoil our success in the fight against the coronavirus?” he asks, referring to the current resurgence of the virus.

Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu excoriated Bennett’s leadership, accusing him of “surrendering to [Ra’am leader Mansour] Abbas” and “sold him the Negev” three hours after he issued a demand for transfer of the government’s Bedouin affairs office to the Welfare Ministry, fulfilling a coalition agreement that had been scheduled for a later date.

“Bennett has only six seats [in the Knesset], and in this reality, every anti-Zionist MK in the coalition is de facto PM,” Netanyahu told his Likud faction.

“Bennett will have to continue to surrender to the dictates of every anti-Zionist Arab MK. If Mansour Abbas will ask him to stand on one foot, clap and put his hands on his head, Bennett will do it. Bennett is a weak and extorted prime minister.”

Ra’am faction chairman Walid Taha said on Sunday night that “in the coming days we will witness significant decisions on many issues related to Arab society.”

New Hope leader and Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar lashed out at the opposition at his own faction meeting.

“There was never an opposition that sought to delegitimize a government like this one,” he said. “This is the continuation of the delegitimization process of the institutions of state and the justice system that has been carried out in recent years, which is now being aimed at the government and Knesset. They oppose everything, they filibuster everything, including laws they agree with, which they passed themselves. This is against the interests of the state.”