Family of Israeli Prime Minister Panned for Leaving on Overseas Trip Amid Omicron Fears

The family of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett left on Wednesday for an overseas vacation, even though the prime minister has warned the Israeli public to refrain from such travel in order to prevent the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19. Bennett, who was not scheduled to travel with his family, has come under fire for his family’s foreign travel. The prime minister’s family originally had planned a trip to Mauritius, but that was canceled after Israel gave the eastern African country a designation of red.  The family changed its designation last weekend after the variant was discovered in Israel and foreign travelers were banned in Israel. “If someone asked me, at the moment I wouldn’t recommend flying abroad right now amid a level of uncertainty like this,” Bennett told reporters on Friday. The coronavirus cabinet voted over the weekend to allow flights of Israeli citizens in and out of the country, however. “The Bennett family will, of course, follow all the guidelines and rules that apply to Israeli citizens,” a statement from Bennett’s office said. Israeli media is reporting that officials in Bennett’s office tried to convince his wife, GIlat, to change the family’s plans and members of Bennett’s governing coalition called the decision to travel abroad damaging, parroting Bennett’s insistence that government members “set a personal example.”  Bennett’s 9-year-old son, David, received his first child-sized dose of the coronavirus vaccine on November 23, which turned in to a photo opp in which he encouraged other children to get vaccinated and said that it didn’t hurt that much.