Netanyahu reinstates Gallant
His predecessors Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid denounced his claims, with Bennett calling his speech shameful and Lapid telling him to "take responsibility".
Facing dire polls and growing public anger and anxiety over a wave of attacks on multiple fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday the permanent reinstatement of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, whom he fired two weeks ago for publicly calling to freeze his plans to overhaul the judicial system.
Netanyahu, in a speech to the nation, also blamed the opposition and the previous government for recent violence that has included rocket fire from Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip, and a series of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks.
His predecessors Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid denounced his claims, with Bennett calling his speech shameful and Lapid telling him to “take responsibility”.
In a primetime address and press conference, Netanyahu lashed out at opponents of the planned shake-up of the judiciary – which he paused following mass protests and a general strike in response to Gallant’s axing – while vowing that his right-religious coalition will restore security.
“Our country is under a terrorist assault,” he said. But it “did not start now. Under the previous government, the number of terror attacks doubled”.
Netanyahu claimed the previous government showed weakness, emboldening Israel’s enemies. He singled out for criticism a US-backed maritime border demarcation deal with Lebanon, which he falsely said was signed with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
“The previous government handed over territory and gas deposits to the enemy without getting anything in return,” he charged.
The premier sought to link the agreement to the surging attacks, before turning to the mass protests against his government’s plans to reform the judiciary. He asserted that warnings by army reservists that they might refuse service if his government moves forward with the legislation package also projected weakness to Israel’s enemies.
“When you declare that the State of Israel is collapsing, how do you think our enemies interpret this?” Netanyahu said he asked opposition leader Lapid, when the two met on Sunday for a security briefing. “Our enemies see this, they hear this … They believe they can take us on, with combined terror from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.
“I tell you tonight, people of Israel, we will repel these threats and we will defeat our enemies. We’ve done so in the past and we’ll do so again.
“We’ll reestablish deterrence, we’ll fix the damages we inherited,” he said, adding that any enemies who see an opportunity to attack “are hugely mistaken”.
After the press conference, Gallant tweeted out a picture of him and Netanyahu with the caption, “Continuing together with full strength for Israel’s security.”
TIMES OF ISRAEL
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