Over 2,500 medical residents announced their resignation Oct. 7, following the failure of talks with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz to shorten the length of their shifts. The residents have been protesting for several days over their working conditions, arguing they can no longer provide quality health care.

A day earlier, Economy Minister Orna Barbivai said she would not extend the current authorization that allows residents in hospitals in the periphery areas to work for 26 consecutive hours, and that this model of shorter shiftswould be extended to the entire Israeli health system within five years. Evidently, her announcement did not satisfy the residents, who went ahead with the decision to resign. But on Oct. 11, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “There is no real problem. Everybody knows that we are about to pass a budget. This is nothing more than a performative protest. We’ve seen it all before.”

Ostensibly, what happened can be regarded as yet another fight in the age-old battle between ministries and state employees demanding better conditions. What makes this case interesting is the way that the three ministers involved presented a unified front, given that they come from three different parties with three very different worldviews.

Liberman is head of the rightwing Yisrael Beiteinu party, Horowitz heads leftwing Meretz, and Barbivai is a member of the centrist Yesh Atid party. The fact that they all agreed on the issue of residents is further evidence of the unprecedented ideological diversity of the Bennett-Lapid government.