Joining a chorus of attacks on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid accused the Prime Minister of breaking apart the authority of the Foreign Ministry and doing nothing to combat a worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel.
"Netanyahu is not managing a government, he's managing a kindergarten," Lapid charged at his party's faction meeting. "Just like the election commercial in which he was a kindergarten teacher, he's still a kindergarten teacher."
Lapid continued the meeting by blasting the distribution of Foreign Ministry responsibilities to six different ministries; Yesh Atid has already filed its second no-confidence motion against Israel's 34th government over the issue.
"Israel does not need a minister for Jerusalem affairs, nor a minister for strategic affairs, nor an intelligence minister, nor a deputy minister, and certainly not a minister without portfolio," Lapid asserted.
"It needs a strong, full-time foreign minister, who controls a just as strong publicity department," he stressed.
"Israel needs a Foreign Ministry that is ready to deal with allegations against our soldiers abroad, with the attempt already underway to ban us from the Olympics, and with the intolerable and irresponsible crisis Netanyahu caused with the US administration."
"We are not a regular country," Lapid continued. "We live in the world's worst neighborhood and have the world's worst neighbors. A publicity war is critical."
"There is a worldwide campaign against Israel's very existence. It is not against products nor against settlements; it is against the idea that Jews should have a state of their own."
"To deal with it, we must have a strong government and a strong Foreign Ministry," Lapid emphasized. "The last thing we need is a kindergarten and ministers who fight over portfolios describing and publicizing the state to our enemies."