Israeli politics, with its old and new protagonists alike, put on a dismal and hypocritical show at the cabinet meeting on July 28 — the meeting that approved the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners. On the morning of the vote, several ministers cried out in current events radio programs and on their Facebook pages against the “dangerous gesture” made with too little in return — renewal of the talks with the Palestinian Authority. Their words were directed to their right-wing constituents in the settlements, but none of them considered vacating their ministerial chairs around the cabinet table — in the name of ideology.
The march of hypocrisy was headed by one of the senior representatives of the new politics, HaBayit HaYehudi Chairman and Trade and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. “Terrorists must be killed, not released. All my life, I struggled to carry out both parts of this statement. Tomorrow, I will vote against,” wrote Bennett childishly on his popular Facebook page, on the eve of the vote. Later on, he even sharpened his severe tone to call the cabinet decision a “mark of Cain,” and even left to join the demonstration held outside the Prime Minister’s Office against release of the prisoners. Bennett knew that at the end of the day — after the approval of the proposal — he would continue to sit in the Economics Ministry he likes so much, and ignore the many calls of his supporters who begged him on his Facebook page to stand by his principles and quit the government.
