Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu kicked out MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) from Saturday night’s discussion in his office about the Regulation Law, Channel 2 News reported.
According to the report, Netanyahu was angry at comments Smotrich made during an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, in which the Jewish Home MK hinted that the Prime Minister is a “coward”.
"You said about me that I was not right-wing and unreliable, so do not come in here," Netanyahu reportedly slammed Smotrich. "I do not want to sit with you."
In the Haaretz interview, Smotrich said that “Netanyahu is not right-wing. Until Netanyahu arrived on the scene, it was clear there was right and left. When the left is in power, you can have talk of a two-state solution, and when the right is in power, there's nothing to talk about. He created a mistaken impression that a consensus exists between right and left over the two-state solution. It's not true, it erodes people's confidence, and does damage to the positions and interests of Israel.”
Neither the Likud nor the Jewish Home commented on the report about the incident between Netanyahu and Smotrich.
During Saturday’s meeting between Netanyahu and Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett, the two were not able to come to any agreement on the subject of the Regulation Law. The two plan to meet again on Sunday to continue the discussion.
Netanyahu is expected to push to implement Attorney General Avichai's Mandelblit's solution, in which Amona residents would be moved to a nearby hill for eight months, after which they would be expelled a second time.