Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer expressed sorrow over Labor MK Ophir Pines's resignation from the Knesset Thursday, and told his fellow party members that “if we were not in the government – Ketzaleh would be” – a reference to MK Yaakov ("Ketzaleh") Katz, Chairman of the National Union party.
Ben-Eliezer reacted to Pines's accusation that Labor should not have joined the “right-wing” Netanyahu government by saying that the government was not right-wing at all. By joining it, he added, Labor prevented the nationalists from steering the government.
Ben Eliezer spoke at a meeting of the Labor Party Bureau. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we are experts at stabbing ourselves. A party is a house, a house with foundations, and it is strong. Maybe the residents of the house are not good, but the house is strong. The ideology which Bibi [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] is following is the ideology of this house, right here, and he is not following the Revisionist ideology.”
Revisionist Zionism refers to the Zionist ideology of Zev Jabotinsky and the founders of the Herut party, to which Likud is a successor, which held that Israel's rightful territory stretches beyond the Jordan River.
"I am very sorry about Ophir's departure,” the veteran minister said. “I appointed him Party Secretary when I was Party Chairman. Ophir is one of the best parliamentarians I know in the Israeli Knesset. This good parliamentarian had every quality in him except one – patience. I regret his departure, but I salute him for the way he said farewell to the party.”