Interview with Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Kiryat Arba, September 2023/Photo:Niv Aharonson, Video Content Editing: Daniel Farber Bell, Video Editing: Gilad Manheim
Tuvia Smotrich, brother of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, lashed out at National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Tuesday. Smotrich shared the tweet in which Ben-Gvir announced that he would hold a mass prayer in Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Square, in response to clashes on Yom Kippur between worshippers and demonstrators protesting the erection of a separation partition between men and women in the heart of the city.
"Ben-Gvir is the rejected child of the class who one day returned to the neighborhood of Brion," Smotrich wrote. "A populist with zero national responsibility who cares about nothing but self-aggrandizement." He added that without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political entanglement, which included a boycott by most opposition parties that refused to sit in a coalition with him, Ben-Gvir would never have been elected to the Knesset. "His rise to the forefront is perhaps the most disastrous result for Israeli society of the boycott of Bibi and the disruption he has created in Israeli democracy."
"His rise is the most disastrous outcome for society." Ben-Gvir/Niv Aharonson
Smotrich's brother, the finance minister and Ben-Gvir's partner in the last elections, predictably attacked the demonstrators in Tel Aviv and opposition leaders. "In the State of Israel, an anarchist movement has arisen that is motivated by ignorance, fear and hatred of Judaism and nationalism, and is ready to burn the country without borders and without red lines, but thank God this is a small group and an entire country disavows them and their behavior. Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, the leaders of the left, are gripped by paralyzing fear and are unwilling to renounce this despicable conduct out of small political considerations. But the vast majority of the public despise them and transcend the new provocation of the dangerous handful."
- More on the subject:
- Bezalel Smotrich
- Itamar Ben-Gvir
