Netanyahu spoke in English, Lapid scolded: "Spin invention"/Knesset Channel
Even today, almost five months after the October 7 disaster, people meet me and tell me: "You should enter the government."
They don't say it in anger, but rather from a positive place: "It's better for you to be there, where the decisions are made, than Ben Gvir and Smotrich."
It sounds reasonable, until you understand the price.
Because the price is that the government stays, and Netanyahu stays.
It does not occur to him for a moment to say goodbye to Ben Gvir and Smotrich, but he really does not care that the government expands more and more.
The result is that Gadi Eisenkot and Itamar Ben Gvir sit together at the government table.
This is a heartbreaking picture.
The Chief of Staff who lost his son, alongside the supporter of racist terrorism. I have no doubt that Gadi - a well-meaning Israeli who sacrificed what was dearest to him - would have preferred it to be otherwise, but this is what the Israeli public sees on television: Gadi and Ben Gabir, partners.
On October 7 he is lost, he no longer counts those who saved him.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu/Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel
If I entered the government, who would voice the cry of the reserves?
IDF fighters in the Gaza Strip/IDF spokesman
In an interview that Netanyahu gave to CBS this week, he said: "The Israeli public has confidence in me."
The interviewer did not argue.
If, after the greatest disaster in the history of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, instead of being kicked home in disgrace, Netanyahu increased his coalition to 76 MKs, then this is an expression of confidence. If instead of Knesset members running away from him, decent and sane centrists join his government, then he is back to being Legitimate.
If I had also joined him, the coalition under him would have numbered 100 MKs.
the largest in the country's history.
It would have definitively eliminated the question of legitimacy, and also the question of whether we are able to continue to be a functioning democracy in time of war.
of course not.
After all, there is no democracy without opposition.
If we had come to sit under Netanyahu, no one in the political system would have voiced the cry of the families of the abductees.
No one would raise the voice of the collapsing reservists.
No one would talk about recruiting ultra-Orthodox or the disgraceful budget that was put on the Knesset table.
Those who sit under Netanyahu and "protest from within" against the government, know that it cannot be taken seriously.
Netanyahu doesn't even get bored of these weak protests.
If you are against, what are you doing there?
Netanyahu again managed this painful issue as he usually does.
Demonstration for the release of the abductees/Niv Aharonson
How can an Israeli who wants to be good like him sit around the same table with Ben Gabir?
Minister Gadi Eisenkot/official website, Elad Malka
Everyone who met Netanyahu in the weeks after October 7, including me, sat across from a complete man.
He was broken from within and he was lost politically.
The expansion of the coalition saved him.
Netanyahu is a failed and dangerous leader, but he is a skilled politician.
Once his government expanded, he realized he could save his reign.
Whoever thought he would show favor to those who saved him, does not know the man.
From the moment he recovered, he stopped counting them.
Against the reassuring version "we influence from within", the facts are accumulating that say the opposite.
In recent weeks it has become clear again and again that Netanyahu is back to running the business as usual.
From the moderate wing of the cabinet, he hid the decision to prevent the negotiating delegation from going to Egypt, and also the decision to send the head of the Mossad to Paris (I told one of them about this, he had difficulty hiding his embarrassment). From the right wing, he hid the understanding of the scope of humanitarian aid. The Cabinet read on the networks about the decision to approve construction in the settlements, the budget passes with all the coalition funds and unnecessary offices. Of course, it does not even occur to him to act to recruit ultra-Orthodox. This is not a unity government, and this is not an emergency government, this is Netanyahu's government. Another one.
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War of Iron Swords
Benjamin Netanyahu
Yair Lapid
Default October 7
abducted
Haredim recruitment