International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz on Saturday referred to Finance Minister Yair Lapid as “boastful and arrogant,” in response to Lapid’s request on July 20 that Steinitz be removed from a security cabinet meeting.Steinitz, who is not a member of the security cabinet, was incensed when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told him to leave the meeting at Lapid’s request.Steinitz lashed out at the Yesh Atid chairman for the incident in a Channel 2 interview on Saturday and criticized the prime minister for acceding to Lapid’s request.He said that Netanyahu had shown “weakness,” and must show Lapid “who is the boss” in the government.Steinitz said that the incident was “unnecessary and unpleasant.”Lapid had displayed the same “boastful and arrogant behavior” that he had displayed in the past, Steinitz said, citing as an example an incident uncovered during the election campaign last year in which Lapid gained acceptance to Bar-Ilan University’s doctoral program for hermeneutics without having completed a bachelor’s or master’s degree.“There are people who think they deserve everything. They don’t need to learn and they don’t need experience.It doesn’t work that way,” Steinitz told Channel 2.When asked if he had been hurt by the prime minister’s decision to exclude him from the security cabinet meeting, Steinitz responded that he was only human.
