Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appeared to express genuine pleasure Monday - in words, facial expression and tone of voice - with the split of the Labor party into two separate factions, the smaller of which will remain in his coalition.
"The government has grown stronger today," he said at the start of a Likud faction meeting, with news cameras rolling. "It has grown stronger in governability and also in stability, and this is an important thing for the nation of Israel."
Netanyahu also saw repercussions in the move for the negotiations with the Arabs who claim parts of the Land of Israel. "The entire world knows, and the Palestinians know, that this government will be here in the coming years, and that this is the one with which negotiations for peace need to be carried out," he said.
"We want to carry out [the negotiations] and to advance them on the basis of our national interests for security and the interest in peace that unites us all," Netanyahu expounded. "We will act as a responsible and sober government that cares for the State of Israel."
Netanyahu's ruling coalition has become smaller but may have less internal pressure on it from now on, as the more dovish elements of Labor have departed and no longer need to be sated.
The left has become 'an artistic stream'
Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) appeared to see things differently, though. She said that Monday was a bad one for the Netanyahu government, but one of hope for Israel. "The breakup of the Labor party will be followed by the breakup of the government, we will reach elections and at last, the public will be able to freely elect its representatives."
Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) appeared to see things differently, though. She said that Monday was a bad one for the Netanyahu government, but one of hope for Israel. "The breakup of the Labor party will be followed by the breakup of the government, we will reach elections and at last, the public will be able to freely elect its representatives."
Livni pummeled Ehud Barak, who led four other MKs out of Labor, depicting him as the type of politician who "sells out everything for a seat [in the government]." Kadima, she said, was a party with principles, unlike Labor.
"The camp of opponents of Netanyahu has grown today," she said, "and it will keep on growing until Netanyahu falls."
MK Uri Orbach of the Jewish Home mocked Labor from the Knesset podium. "What happened to the Labor party? The left in Israel has turned from a political movement into an artistic stream."
National Union leader MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz said Monday: "We are happy that the left is disintegrating. "Where there is no vision, the people are unruly," he quoted Proverbs 29:18, explaining that Barak's party was paying for its leader's lack of vision on various matters, including the right of Jews to live throughout their historic homeland.
MK Katz expressed doubt regarding the possibility that Netanyahu would invite the NU into his coalition. "We are idealists, but to my great sorrow, he is not so much of an idealist," he said, noting that Netanyahu and Barak have been executing a de facto freeze on construction for Jews throughout Jerusalem and in the cities of Judea and Samaria.