שקד נגד לפיד: היו עלי לחצים כבדים לא לקדם תוכניות בירושליםבאדיבות המצלם

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, leader of the Zionist Spirit Party, on Tuesday criticized Prime Minister Yair Lapid, saying that she had been pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to hold back on promoting construction of new homes in Jerusalem.

Speaking to activists in Tirat Zvi, a religious kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley, Shaked commented on the construction plans in Givat Hashaked, a neighborhood in the south of Jerusalem, which were approved on Monday by the District Committee for Planning and Construction in Jerusalem.

“Givat Hashaked is a construction plan of 700 housing units in Jerusalem, near Malcha, and there was heavy pressure on me from the Prime Minister’s Office, due to US pressures, not to permit the promotion of the plan, but I promoted it anyway, and yesterday it was approved by the District Committee. It’s a very important and strategic plan,” she said.

On the Palestinian Authority’s illegal take over of Area C, Shaked said, “We have to do more about it. The Ministry of Defense and the Minister of Defense need to do a lot more on this issue.”

“But ultimately, we have seen for four election campaigns already, that there was no majority of 61 MKs for a full-fledged right-wing government. Ultimately, we have to consider whether to form - and there’s no such thing according to any poll - a very narrow government that half the country’s residents will feel that it’s not their government, and it is safe to assume will also not be stable, or to form a broader government and fight for what is important for us,” she continued.