The Yamina party's deputy chair was given extra protection in the wake of threats she received over the faction's decision to form a coalition with a broad spectrum of parties united by their opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Knesset Guard decided late on Sunday to assign a protection detail to Ayelet Shaked, shortly after hundreds of demonstrators protested outside her home, some of whom were calling her and other members of Yamina derogatory names.
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Protesters outside the home of Ayelet Shaked on Sunday demonstrating against Yamina joining 'coalition for change'
(Photo: Yair Sagi)
The demonstrators, many of them supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, carried signs calling the Yamina member and her associates traitors. The protestors also launched an aggressive campaign against Bennett's party on social media.
In addition, a demonstration outside Bennett's home in the central city of Ra'anana included people carrying an image of him and Shaked accompanied by the slogan reading, "The big scam." Other banners at the rally branded the two politicians anti-Semites and told them "to go to Gaza".
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Pro Netanyahu protesters outside the home of Ayelet Shaked hold up signs calling Yamina party members 'traitors'
(Photo:: AP)
Channel 12 reported on Sunday that among thousands of text messages sent to Shaked and Bennett, were explicit threats to turn their lives and the lives of their children into hell. "You will know no peace,” some messages read.
Yamina leader Naftali Bennett announced earlier on Sunday that he would be joining centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid in his effort to form a government, more than two months after the March 23 elections.
"With the help of God, we will form a government that would release Israel from the downward spiral it has been caught up in," Bennett said, referring to four inconclusive election cycles in just over two years.
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Yamina leader Naftali Bennett announcing his decision to join coalition for change on Sunday
(Photo: Reuters)
Netanyahu said in response to Bennett's announcement that the Yamina leader defrauded his constituents and was on his way to joining a dangerous left-wing government.
Bennett and Shaked had been in negotiations with Netanyahu to form a right-wing government in recent weeks but the efforts did not materialize.
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Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett in the Knesset after the March 23 elections
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Netanyahu even offered Bennett a power sharing agreement that would see him serve as prime minister first in a rotation of the job, for a period of one year.
But Netanyahu failed to cobble the necessary 61 Knesset votes to form a government that would have needed to rely on the external support of the Islamist Ra'am faction, a move that was rejected by the far-right Religious Zionist Party – also a member of the proposed coalition.
Yamina was accused by the pro-Netanyahu bloc of facilitating an alternative government that would prevent another election, the fifth in two years, an option Netanyahu was seen as favoring.