“This was a hallucination,” says Lapid.

By David Hellerman, World Israel News

Foreign Affairs Minister Yair Lapid denied a claim by Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi that he persuaded her not to defect from the governing coalition by promising to repopulate two Arab villages abandoned during the 1948 War of Independence.

Zoabi told Arabic language Nas Radio that Lapid promised to repopulate the former Galilee villages of Iqrit and Baram.

“Lapid promised me a historic achievement – to bring back the residents of the two Palestinian Arab villages in the Galilee ‘Iqrit’ and ‘Baram’ who were deported in 1948. We started working, but it was stopped,” Zoabi said.

Responding on Twitter, Lapid wrote, “It never happened and was never planned. This is a hallucination.”

Iqrit, northeast of Akko, and Kafr Biram, northwest of Safed, were both Christian villages.

Zoabi, along with coalition MKs Nir Orbach (Yemina) and Mazen Ghanaim (Ra’am) have broken ranks with the tottering coalition already weakened by Yemina MKs Idit Silman quitting the coalition and Amichai Chikli being ousted from the party.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) tweeted in response: “The legacy of the Bennett government – the right of return. “The government of Lapid and Bennett are working with MK Zoabi, Abbas, Tibi and anti-Zionist forces to restore the right of return – we must overthrow this weak government and return the country to our leadership.”

Israelis widely oppose the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel saying a Palestinian influx would leave Jews a minority in their own homeland, arguing that refugees should be resettled in a future Palestinian state.

Israelis also point out they have already absorbed around one million Jewish refugees who fled their Arab homelands in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and elsewhere.

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This drama occurred just a day after the Bennett government convinced rebel Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi to return to the coalition.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office sustained another significant blow on Monday when his Chief of Staff Tal Gan Zvi announced he was leaving his post.

“I asked to end my position soon and turn to new channels. It was a significant and extraordinary time. I thank the Prime Minister for the common path, and I will continue to be of help to him in the future in whatever way he may require,” he stated.

Bennett thanked Gan Zvi and said: “From the moment I entered politics, Tal has been one of the pillars of my public work, at all the various stations. I want to thank him for many years, during which he closely accompanied me with exceptional professionalism, dedication, and loyalty, during the ups and downs, in hard work around the clock.”

Gan Zvi has been with Bennett for close to a decade, since 2013 and is considered one of his closest aides and confidants.

An individual with right-wing beliefs, he was apparently not happy with Bennett’s apparent sharp turn to the left.

This dramatic development occurred just weeks after Shimrit Meir, Bennett’s top diplomatic adviser, resigned, reportedly over political differences.

Pundits explain that Gan Zvi’s leaving could mean the end of Bennett’s coalition, which is currently at a 60-60 tie in the Knesset. Gan Zvi was responsible for ensuring that Member of Knesset Nir Orbach, a member of Bennett’s Yemina party, continues to support the government. With Gan Zvi gone, Orbach is expected to quit the coalition.

This drama occurred just a day after the Bennett government convinced rebel Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi to return to the coalition.

Bennett, who has been in power for less than a year, has been facing repeated upheavals within his staff, party, and coalition, and several analysts estimate that it’s only a question of time before his government falls.

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‘Because I want to bring achievements to meet the needs of Arab society, I will support the coalition,’ Zoabi said.

By TPS and World Israel News Staff

Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi has reached an understanding with the leadership of Israel’s coalition government and proclaimed the reversal of her decision to quit the coalition, thus averting another crisis for Naftali Bennett’s beleaguered government.

Last week, Zoabi announced that she would decline an ambassadorial post that she had been offered and remain in the Knesset, but leave the Meretz party faction.

On Sunday, however, she held a meeting with Foreign Minister and alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid, where the MK was given certain assurances regarding government policies towards the Arab community. The specifics were not revealed.

The decision to return to the coalition was influenced by her belief that a different government, led by the right wing and including Religious Zionism MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, would be much worse, according to her ideology.

“Because I want to bring achievements to meet the needs of Arab society, I will support the coalition,” Zoabi said. “But I also want this government to be true and listen to Arab society and its needs in health care, education, housing and infrastructure.”

While Lapid and Rinawie Zoabi offered no details regarding their meeting, several mayors who were present told Times of Israel that they hope that the “hundreds of millions” of shekels in stuck funding will be released to Arab municipalities.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the news, saying that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Lapid “would do anything to survive politically.”

“They are willing to pay huge sums from taxpayer funds to the haters of Israel and terror supporters,” in order to maintain the coalition, he charged.

Yair Lapid tweeted, “Happy for the return of MK Ghaida Zoabi.”

“We had an open and considered dialogue,” said Lapid, “about the real needs of Arab society, together with the heads of the authorities – whom I thank for coming and enlisting. We have put this debate behind us, and together we return to the work of the government and the coalition.”

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Zoabi is “the architect of documents that describe Zionism as colonialism and Israel as a racist state,” said MK Amichai Chikli.

By World Israel News Staff

After Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced the appointment of Arab-Israeli MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi as Israel’s consul general in Shanghai, some celebrated the decision for its symbolism.

Zoabi, of the left-wing Meretz party, is the first Arab woman to be tasked with heading an Israeli diplomatic mission abroad.

Due to her new position, she will leave the Knesset and be replaced by the next politician on Meretz’s list, Kati Piasecki.

But many right-wing lawmakers are questioning the appointment of Zoabi to a senior diplomatic position when she has admitted publicly that she does not know the lyrics to Israel’s national anthem and reportedly holds anti-Zionist views.

The decision to send Zoabi to Shanghai also comes on the heels of reports concerning her votes on critical coalition issues, such as a bill to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli army.

Some analysts have theorized that the appointment is a way to preemptively stop Zoabi from compromising future votes and avoiding a potential coalition crisis down the road.

Speaking to Kan 11 Radio on Wednesday, Zoabi said that she had been given the post strictly due to her “diplomatic and personal abilities.”

But she admitted that she would not be able to sing along to Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah (The Hope), when played at the Chinese consulate because she is unfamiliar with the song’s text.

She said she does not “know it by heart” due to the fact that the song’s lyrics reference the yearning soul of a Jew — which Zoabi said “excludes me.”

“What disrespect,” Miri Regev of the Likud party responded on Twitter.

“Now we’re appointing terror supporters to the consulate. How will she represent the State of Israel, as an occupation state? A general state of all her citizens? Or maybe the Palestinian nation state?”

Rebel Yamina MK Amichai Chikli wrote on Twitter that Zoabi was not suitable for the job because she “is the architect of documents that describe Zionism as colonialism and Israel as a racist state.”

Chikli, who notably broke party discipline to vote against the formation of the current government that includes Islamist and left-wing parties, quoted Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s late father, also a lawmaker, saying that “the demand of Arab public representatives to change Israel from a ‘Jewish state’ to a ‘state of all its citizens’ is a transparent attempt to empty Zionism of its content.”

“If we give up the essence of Israel as a Jewish state, we have nothing to look for here,” Chikli stated.

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