In an interview on Sunday evening that aired on Channel 13 News, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked insisted that she has remained fast to her ideological moorings, even though she is not in the government of her first choice.
“I haven’t undergone an ideological transformation,” Shaked protested. “I’m in the government, and I state my views clearly. Of course, I would have preferred a right-wing government,” she said.
Nonetheless, Shaked has come in for sharp and incessant criticism from right-wing parties that now find themselves in the opposition, and she hit back with determination and energy. “The fact that I still stand up for my ideological positions proves that I haven’t changed,” she insisted. “If a bill comes up for a vote and in the past I believed it to be a bad piece of legislation, I won’t change my mind on it now. But I will remain in the government as long as it continues to function well,” she added.
Asked about the chances that a government could still be formed that would include the Likud party, Shaked negatived the idea, saying that it was not a realistic notion. “People are constantly imagining all kinds of hypothetical constellations. But Netanyahu is still head of the Likud party – he’s not going anywhere. And he failed to form a government following the last few elections – whereas we succeeded.”
Shaked also referred to Netanyahu, the former premier, in another recent interview, this time on Channel 12, when she expressed her opposition to a new piece of legislation being put forward by Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar which would bar a Knesset member under criminal indictment from forming a coalition and serving as prime minister.
“[Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett has asked that we set aside all contentious issues until after the state budget is passed,” Shaked said. “We have to get the budget passed in the next few weeks, no mean task – but after that’s done, we’ll be holding a party meeting and everyone will get to voice his opinion on all pending matters.
“I oppose [Sa’ar’s] law for ideological reasons,” Shaked added, “with no relation to what is going on with Benjamin Netanyahu. I oppose this law. After the budget passes, I’m sure that Bennett will express his opinion on it. Personally, I think that the law is wrong for the State of Israel – it shouldn’t be on the statute book. No country in the world has such a law on its statute books,” she noted.
Shaked was also asked to comment on the opposition of coalition partner Meretz to the outline developed for the Samarian community of Evyatar.
“Evyatar is going to be reestablished,” she said. “I have no doubt that the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister will keep their promises on this. The Defense Minister will certainly fulfill, word for word, what he signed on in the agreement. We have already conducted a land survey and found that there are several dozen dunams of State land there – I’m sure the outline will hold.”
Responding to Shaked’s words, the Likud party issued a statement: “Ayelet Shaked has managed to lie even more than Bennett. Shaked defrauded her voters and joined a government with Meretz, the United Arab List, and Lapid, thus breaking all her promises. Likud governments built twice as much in Judea and Samaria even under heavy international pressure; Shaked and Bennett lie incessantly – yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
The Religious Zionism party also issued a response: “This evening, Shaked informed us that all her heartaches are a sham; she admitted that she is the engine driving this Bennett-Abbas government, and that she is prepared to do whatever it takes to make it survive its term. The ideological transformation of Shaked is now complete with her adoption of left-wing terminology and her accusing of all her critics among her own voter base – those Yamina voters whom she tricked in the last elections – of being responsible for inciting against her.”