Netanyahu Says Not Yoko Ono’s Fault His Government Breaking Up

“This disingenuous charge obscures the real causes of the breakup.”

Credit: Anders Krusberg via Wikimedia Commons

Jerusalem, November 28 – Israel’s prime minister today defended the widow of the late John Lennon from widespread accusations that her meddling in the cabinet’s affairs led to the unraveling of a coalition that had functioned for years until she came along and interfered, sowing instability and resentment among its constituents.

Binyamin Netanyahu called a press conference Wednesday to lay to rest rumors that Yoko Ono’s activities lay at the root of his coalition’s ongoing collapse. “We have all evolved as individuals and as parties,” he assured reporters, “and any inference that Ms. Ono has anything to do with the breakup of this team is not only out of place; it is also dangerous.” Netanyahu’s governing coalition of parties still holds a one-seat parliamentary majority in the 120-member Knesset following the departure of the hardline Yisrael Beiteinu Party, but ongoing rivalries and conflicting interests among the remaining members have prompted numerous analysts to predict the dissolution of the government before its full term ends next November.

“Accusing Yoko Ono of causing the breakup is neither fair nor constructive,” he continued. “Unfair because if her activities in this regard have done anything, it has been merely to uncover the existing rifts that would rend the group apart in any case. Not constructive, because leveling this disingenuous charge obscures the real causes of the breakup, and only makes further such occurrences more likely. We owe it to ourselves and one another to take an honest look at the situation, and not employ emotive rhetoric that does nothing to move us forward.”

Netanyahu listed several factors in the breakup, with which, he insisted, Ms. Ono has little or no connection. “There are diverging interests, conflicting sensibilities, frayed friendships, tensions over the distribution of resources, and no small measure of power struggles,” he explained. “These phenomena would still exist had Ms. Ono never entered the picture. I urge everyone to adopt a more responsible tone so that we can salvage what we may from this difficult situation. I understand the impulse to assign blame for misfortune, but in this case it is misplaced.”

Several members of the political opposition dismissed the prime minister’s remarks as untrustworthy, and set about attempting to recruit Ms. Ono to join them, in anticipation of yet another Netanyahu electoral victory that could be blunted by harnessing the artist and activist’s power to bring down yet another leader. “He’s not credible, so he must be lying or wrong,” insisted Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg. “That means it was in fact Yoko Ono’s fault – while of course being one hundred percent Netanyahu’s fault – and we hope now that we’ve adopted this assumption about her she will rush to become part of us.”

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