Published on : 17/04/2022 – 22:22
The Arab Israeli Raam party “suspended” its participation in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition government on Sunday evening due to violence at the Jerusalem Mosque compound.
The government of Naphtali Bennett appears weakened following a new wave of violence, Sunday, April 17, which left more than twenty injured in and around the esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem.
Early on Sunday, ‘hundreds’ of Palestinian protesters began heaping ‘stones’ on the plaza shortly before religious Jews arrived at the spot, considered Judaism’s holiest and Islam’s third holiest site , Israeli police said.
Israeli security forces intervened on the esplanade, located in the Old City in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector occupied since 1967 by Israel, giving rise to clashes but also to criticism in the Muslim world.
Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports 19 injured Palestinians, some hit by rubber bullets, two days following clashes causing more than 150 injuries.
However, in the evening, the Arab Israeli Raam party announced “suspending” its support for Prime Minister Bennett’s coalition, which last June rallied parties of the right, left, center, and for the first time from the history of Israel, an Arab formation, to oust Benjamin Netanyahu from power.
The threat of a “collective resignation”
“If the government continues its arbitrary measures” at the esplanade of the Mosques, “we will submit a collective resignation”, warned Raam in his press release. Raam has four MPs in the coalition, which currently has 60, one less than the majority threshold.
This freezing of Raam’s participation in the coalition has no short-term effect for the government of Naftali Bennett because the work of the Knesset is suspended until May 5.
In the meantime, however, the prime minister is trying to calm things down and stabilize his coalition, political sources in Jerusalem told AFP.
At the beginning of April, the government had already lost its majority in Parliament with the departure of a member of the radical right. The latter had mentioned the government’s decision to authorize the distribution in hospitals of bread with leaven, or “hametz”, during Passover, the Jewish Passover, which is contrary to tradition.
For its part, the Likud party of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called once more on right-wing lawmakers to leave the coalition to form a “right-wing government” that also brings together the Orthodox Jewish and far-right parties. .
“When Jews can no longer walk safely to Jerusalem for Passover…there are right-wing MPs in the coalition who understand that this government has come to the end of its course,” Likud said as protesters Israeli buses were stoned by Palestinians on Sunday.
With AFP
