Lapid: Shame on Netanyahu for attacking my English

The conundrum over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s clumsy attempt to criticize the English of Blue and White Party MK Yair Lapid continued on Tuesday when Lapid posted an English video attacking Netanyahu.

The Likud started the fight on Monday when it released a campaign ad comparing Netanyahu’s English to that of Lapid. The ad included a clip from Lapid’s interview last week with CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour in which he hesitated, repeatedly saying “eh” and used the word “conundrum.” Netanyahu spokesman Jonathan Urich tweeted the ad and said the Likud had opened a betting pool on the best explanation for the word.

“I fiercely defended Israel like I always do in the foreign press, and Netanyahu released an ad trying to mock my English claiming there is no such word as conundrum,” Lapid said in the new video. “The prime minister of Israel was trying to mock and offend a political rival, while the political rival was defending Israel abroad. You don’t get to do that. Shame on you.”

Lapid responded on Netanyahu’s Twitter page on Monday: “Bibi, let me help you,” and posted the definition of conundrum as “a confusing and difficult problem or question.”

Sources in Likud admitted on Monday that the questioning of the word conundrum was an error. But the sources said the contrast between the eloquence of Netanyahu and his competitors in English had been delivered successfully by the ad.

Likud sources revealed to The Jerusalem Post that the party had changed its mechanism for approving English content before it goes online.