“Too often, [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu manages to bypass the Knesset. In that sense, he has gravely corrupted Israeli democracy,” said Merav Michaeli, who heads the Zionist Camp’s Knesset faction, in an interview with Al-Monitor.

On March 31, the Knesset recessed for its spring break after an especially turbulent winter session of verbal clashes between Arabs and Jews on the right and left, as well as rivalry within the center-left opposition bloc, where the Zionist Camp is losing support to Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. As head of the biggest opposition faction, Michaeli has tried to get complex views across without giving in to populist sentiment. Although faced with a prime minister who is oblivious to the legislature and to the democratic rules of the game, she even managed to maneuver and score a few small victories over Netanyahu’s narrow coalition.

The text of the interview follows:

Al-Monitor:  You have recessed, but the political battles between Arabs and Jews continue. Knesset member Zuhair Bahloul from your faction stirred up quite a storm when he said in an interview with Army Radio [April 7] that the stabber from Hebron was not a terrorist. The prime minister said that his comments were shameful. The left also distanced itself from them. Didn’t he go too far?