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Yair Lapid To Settle for Finance Ministry?

Report says after holding out for foreign minister post, Lapid will yield

by
Adam Chandler
March 08, 2013
Soon To Be Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman(AFP)
Soon To Be Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman(AFP)

Just when we thought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition haggling was going to be stumped by Yair Lapid’s ambition to snag the foreign minister post from the temporarily disgraced, permanently uncouth Avigdor Lieberman, a report says that Lapid has backed away from the demand. From the Jerusalem Post:

According to the Channel 2 report, Lapid will likely become finance minister in the next government, allowing Netanyahu to save the Foreign Ministry for Avigdor Liberman.



With Lapid taking the Finance Ministry, Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett was likely to be the Labor Trade and Industry Minister with expanded authority to fight the concentration of wealth, or possibly Interior Minister, Channel 2 reported.



In addition, Bayit Yehudi MK Uri Ariel will likely serve as Construction and Housing Minister in the new government, the report added.

So, for those of us who have been eating our lunches courtesy of Lieberman’s high profile misarticulations, we may be blessed with a few years more of Lieberman’s diplomatic stylings.

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.