At the end of last year, Benjamin Netanyahu guaranteed his appointment as prime minister, which, by the way, protects him from justice in the three corruption cases for which he is indicted, but he had to pay the price of entering the executive forces of the Jewish extreme right, which by then were excluded from the parliamentary framework. Its members do not participate in the Security Cabinet, the ministerial Sanhedrin that makes wartime decisions, but their fanatical proclamations threaten to open a new front in Netanyahu’s political rearguard. As the first month of Israel’s largest armed conflict in half a century passes, the maneuvers of some extremist ministers have overwhelmed the head of a right-wing government considered the most conservative in the entire history of the Jewish state.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came from the head of the heritage portfolio, Avihai Eliyahu, a member of the Jewish Power Party. This formation is a legacy of the radicalism of Meir Kahane, who advocated the armed struggle against the Arabs in the 1970s and 1980s at the head of the Kach party (banned in 1988 for advocating terrorism), before being replaced by one An Egyptian was shot dead in New York in 1990. Eliyahu was sanctioned by the prime minister on Sunday and banned from government meetings after he agreed to the “option” of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip during a radio broadcast the same day.
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The ultra-nationalist minister said during the broadcast that he was not entirely satisfied with the intensity of the bombings against Hamas after the Islamist militia launched an attack on October 7 that left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel and kidnapped another 240 became. . When asked in an interview what he thought about the possibility of devastating the Palestinian strip with nuclear weapons and “killing everyone,” he replied that it was a viable “option,” even at the price of including the hostages life would be taken in Israel.
“The lives of the abductees are not worth more than those of the soldiers,” he emphasized, “and in war a certain price is always paid.” In his opinion, everyone in the Gaza Strip is a fighter against Israel and the entry of humanitarian aid is not necessary. The prime minister’s internal cabinet quickly warned that Eliyahu’s statements “did not correspond to reality” and then reported that Netanyahu had “suspended his participation in executive sessions until further orders.”
Israel has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons, but has been considered a nuclear power for six decades. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that it has nearly a hundred nuclear warheads. Former generals Yoav Galant, current defense minister, and Benny Gantz, his predecessor and current member of the Cabinet of National Unity for the Gaza War, called Eliyahu “irresponsible” and “harmful” in front of the families of the abductees. in particular.
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Eliyahu pointed out on social media hours later that his statements on the radio had a “metaphorical” tone. Amid the clamor from the chambers of Arab countries and condemnation from the US State Department, Netanyahu limited himself to reprimanding the minister of cultural heritage and temporarily removing him from government meetings because he was banned in wartime when power is concentrated Safety cabinet. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called for his immediate dismissal. “The presence of extremists in the government puts us all at risk and harms the central goals of the war: the elimination of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” he added in a tweet on the X Network (formerly Twitter).
Netanyahu leads a coalition of six parties: the party he leads (the conservative Likud); three from the far right who were on a single list (Jewish Power, which includes Eliyahu; Religious Zionism and the homophobic Noam Party); and two ultra-Orthodox, the Sephardic Shas and Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism. In total, they represent 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset or parliament.
Given the general budget cuts caused by the war, the two ultra-Orthodox groups continue to call for increased funding for yeshivas (rabbinical schools) and Jewish religious education. The Minister of Finance and leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, granted it. On the same Monday, Smotrich again called for the creation of “buffer zones” to “prevent the entry of Arabs” around Jewish settler settlements and increase security in the West Bank.
In a letter to several Hebrew media outlets quoted by Efe agency, Smotrich warned that the Israeli army “does not maintain an acceptable level of security” in the region. To this end, it has also called for the closure of roads in olive harvesting areas, one of the most important Palestinian agricultural activities at this time of year. The possible ban threatens to spark new protests in the West Bank, which have led to the deaths of dozens of Palestinians at the hands of security forces and armed Jewish settler groups in the first month of the conflict in Gaza.
“The pure reality is that this government of radical ministers is sabotaging the war strategy (against Hamas),” warned political columnist Nadav Eyal this Monday in the pages of the newspaper Yediot Ajronot. “While Smotrich seems incapable of driving the recovery of the Israeli economy (in wartime), Eliyahu is proposing to commit genocide in Gaza,” Eyal added.
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