Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s weekly statement to the press, made from the Likud Party’s chambers in the Knesset on Nov. 28, conveyed a sense of sheer euphoria both for Netanyahu and the large numbers of Likud activists who came to rub shoulders with the government.

Netanyahu made his grand entry into the crowded hall like a victor returning from the battlefield. He stopped to shake hands with the many Likud supporters who packed the room and to compliment himself on the way his government handled all the fires and arson that raged across the country last week.

Compared with his earlier statements that were issued when the country actually contended with the fires, the prime minister was a little less decisive when it came to casting blame around. He spoke positively about the way that Jews and Arabs collaborated in fighting the fires and avoided using the term “terrorist arson,” which he himself coined just a few days earlier. Instead, he simply made do with saying that some of the fires were caused by arson.

Nevertheless, the term “terrorist arson,” or as last week’s events were sometimes termed, “the arson intifada,” has since entered Israel’s public and political lexicon. As expected, these terms only boosted the right-wing coalition’s agenda.