International Relations Minister Yuval Stinitz referred to Finance Minister Yair Lapid as “boastful and arrogant” on Saturday, in response to Lapid’s request late last month that Steinitz be removed from a security cabinet meeting.
Outgoing finance minister Steinitz and incoming minister Lapid at office change over, March 19, 2013. – Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
Steinitz, who is not a member of the security cabinet, was incensed after he was forced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to leave the meeting in question at Lapid’s request, according to a Channel 2 report.
Steinitz lashed out at Lapid for the incident in a Channel 2 interview on Saturday and criticized Netanyahu for acceding to Lapid’s request to oust him from the meeting.
He said that Netanyahu had shown “weakness,” and must show Lapid “who is the boss” in the government.
Steinitz said that the incident was “not necessary and unpleasant.” He charged that Lapid had displayed the same “boastful and arrogant behavior” that he has displayed in the past, using as an example an incident uncovered during the election campaign last year in which Lapid sought acceptance in Bar Ilan University’s doctoral program for hermeneutics without having completed a B.A. or a Masters degree.
“There are people who think they deserve everything. They don’t need to learn and they don’t need experience. It doesn’t work that way,” Steinitz told Channel 2.
When asked if he had been hurt by the prime minister’s decision to exclude him from the security cabinet meeting, Steinitz answered that he was only human.
View original Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Steinitz-slams-boastful-and-arrogant-Yair-Lapid-321944
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