Member of Knesset Chaim Oron (Meretz) called the current government a “carnival government” on Wednesday in response to the Interior Ministry’s authorization of 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem’s northern Ramat Shlomo neighborhood. Oron said that expressions of regret from the government regarding the timing of the announcement only compound the embarrassment as the problem, according to Oron, is the construction itself and not the timing of the announcement.

“The attempts of the cabinet ministers to clutch at procedural pitfalls and to say there were flaws in the timing and in the authorization process only intensifies the embarrassment… It is best that they spare us these tales. The problem is the essence, not the procedure.”