By Gill Hoffman, Jerusalem Post—
The transition meeting of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on Monday lasted only 25 minutes.
No further meetings are planned between them. Netanyahu declined to take part in the traditional transition ceremony, and the brief meeting took place behind closed doors, with no statement to the press. Sources close to Bennett have said that Netanyahu did not allow any of his staff to hold transition meetings before the new government was officially authorized on Sunday.
Netanyahu convened all the MKs in his bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and the Religious Zionist Party at the Knesset on Monday and urged them to work hard together to bring the new government down.
“The fraudulent government will fall quickly, because it is united solely on hatred, exclusion and greed,” Netanyahu told the MKs.
Netanyahu announced that the Right bloc would meet weekly to plan strategy and maintain discipline within the bloc. He urged the MKS to remain unified and fire from their armored personnel carrier out, not in.
“I have never seen an opposition so cohesive and strong,” Netanyahu said. “This is a super-mission, and we’ve been drafted into it. We will go together, and we will win together. I believe in this obsessively.”
Former chairman Miki Zohar and Shas leader Arye Deri repeatedly called Netanyahu “Mr. Prime Minister” by mistake. He said he would not argue with them.
“Call me your excellency, ” Netanyahu told Deri.
