Two MPs in the Israeli government have threatened to bring down the recently formed government if it decides to wage war on Lebanon or the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Arab MPs, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi and Mazen Ghnaim, voiced their shared opinion after Israeli PM Naftali Bennett threatened that Israel would respond forcefully to attacks that emerge against it from Lebanon or Gaza.
“The prime minister knows that if Israel goes to war, it will fall because [left-wing Israeli political part] Meretz and the United Arab List of the Islamic Movement will not agree to that,” Zoabi said in a radio interview following Bennett’s remarks.
In case the government decides to attack Lebanon or Gaza, the political coalition currently in power will be threatened, she added.
In a similar stance, Ghnaim said that all four MPs of the Islamic Movement would withdraw from the government coalition if a war is waged on Lebanon or Gaza, describing the latter two as “red lines.”
The MPs received backlash from the leaders of the new political coalition formed in May to remove former PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Their comments sparked controversy in the Israeli political scene and raised concerns in the Israeli interior about the sturdiness of the new coalition and its capacity to tackle sensitive decisions.
