Likud ministers sidelined from coalition negotiations
With coalition negotiations advancing slowly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keeping his cards close to his chest and not disclosing his final goal even to senior Likud members.
This past Saturday night, senior Likud members went on the traditional Mimouna rounds. The traditional Moroccan Jewish celebrations marking the end of Passover were limited to indoor locations because of the stormy weather. At chance encounters, the tense party members tried to squeeze information from each other regarding the coalition talks in an effort to understand what kind of coalition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to form — and what his plans are for each of them.
The Mimouna conversations revealed that senior members of the ruling party — including sitting ministers, to say nothing of Knesset members who see themselves as due for an upgrade — actually have no clue what their role will be, if they’ll have one at all, in Netanyahu’s fourth government. If they sought comfort, they found the proverbial "half a consolation" in the “troubles of many.”
