Swine flu fear is what kept Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from meeting with Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Friday as originally scheduled, the Prime Minister’s Office said last night. The prime minister is legally obligated to periodically update the opposition leader, but Netanyahu has not met with Livni since becoming prime minister. The last time the two met was for coalition discussions in early April. The office said that Netanyahu cancelled all his meetings on Friday following concern that the wife of Meir Kalifi, his military secretary, had contracted the flu. Kalifi and his wife underwent tests on Friday, and were found to be healthy.Netanyahu himself did not undergo any tests for the flu, the office added.
A spokesman for Livni said that the meeting was postponed for “technical reasons,” including concern about the swine flu. The spokesman said that Livni was going to give Netanyahu the “benefit of the doubt” on this matter, in the hope that the meeting will take place soon, as obligated by law.
This is the third time that the meeting between the Netanyahu and Livni has been cancelled since the new government was formed.
{JPost/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}
