Just as it happens in the opening chapter of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the Palestinians woke up one day in mid-June to find that they, too, had undergone a metamorphosis. However, unlike the protagonist of the novella by the Jewish-Czech writer, they have not been transformed into a creepy-crawly, but rather into “shrapnel in the butt” of Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the HaBayit HaYehudi party. As a matter of fact, they were not all that surprised. The feeling that they stand in the way of the realization of the grandiose vision of the Greater Land of Israel, propounded by the HaBayit HaYehudi party, is nothing new to them. Ironically, the word “butt” in Hebrew shares the same semantic root with the words “to settle” and “settlement.” And the Palestinians are no doubt obstructing the implementation of the vision led by Bennett’s movement — that of Jewish settlements in the heart of the West Bank.

Bennett presented the “shrapnel in the butt” metaphor on July 17, in an address to the Judea and Samaria Council, and notwithstanding the storm raised over the analogy, he has not retracted his words.

And thus said Bennett:

“I'll tell you a quick story. I have a friend called Yoav. He served in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] Golani Brigade and in a clash, shrapnel got stuck in his butt. I came to visit him in the hospital, and he told me, ‘Look, I have this shrapnel. … According to the doctors, I have two options: either to have an operation to remove the shrapnel, running the risk of becoming handicapped, crippled for life, or to leave it there, although from time to time, at the change of seasons, it may hurt a bit.’… So, he decided to continue living with it. … There are situations where deceptive striving for perfection is liable to cause a disaster.”