At the end of last year, Benjamin Netanyahu guaranteed his appointment to the position of prime minister, which incidentally protects him from justice in the three corruption cases for which he is being tried, but he had to pay the price of joining the Executive. to forces of the Jewish extreme right that until then had been excluded from the parliamentary framework. Its members do not participate in the Security Cabinet, the ministerial sanhedrin that makes decisions in time of war, but their fanatical proclamations threaten to open a new front in Netanyahu’s political rearguard. As the first month of the largest armed conflict in Israel for half a century passes, the maneuvers of some extremist ministers have overwhelmed the head of a Government that has been considered the most conservative in the entire history of the Jewish State to the right.
The straw that broke the camel’s back of extremism came from the head of the Heritage portfolio, Avihai Eliyahu, a member of the Jewish Power party. This formation is heir to the radicalism of Meir Kahane, who in the seventies and eighties of the last century championed the armed struggle against the Arabs at the head of the Kach party (banned in 1988 for advocating terrorism), before being shot dead by a Egyptian in New York in 1990. Eliyahu was sanctioned on Sunday by the prime minister, who removed him from government meetings, after that same day he had agreed with the “option” of dropping an atomic bomb on the strip from Gaza during a radio program.
The ultranationalist minister had declared during the broadcast that he was not completely satisfied with the intensity of the bombings against Hamas, after the attack launched by the Islamist militia on October 7, in which more than 1,400 people died in Israel and another 240 were kidnapped. . When asked in an interview what he thought of the possibility of devastating the Palestinian strip with nuclear weapons and “killing everyone,” he replied that it was a feasible “option,” even at the cost of also ending the lives of the hostages. captured in Israel.
“The lives of the kidnapped are not worth more than those of the soldiers,” he emphasized, “and in war some price is always paid.” In his opinion, everyone in the Gaza Strip is fighting against Israel and the entry of humanitarian aid is not necessary. The prime minister’s internal cabinet was quick to warn that Eliyahu’s statements were “disconnected from reality,” before reporting that Netanyahu had “suspended” his participation in executive sessions “until further orders.”
Israel has never acknowledged that it possesses nuclear weapons, but it has been considered a nuclear power for six decades. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that it has nearly a hundred atomic warheads. Former generals Yoav Galant, current Minister of Defense, and Benny Gantz, his predecessor in the position and current member of the Cabinet of national unity for the Gaza war, called Eliyahu “irresponsible” and “harmful,” in the face of the families of those kidnapped in particular.
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Eliyahu pointed out hours later on social media that his statements on the radio had had a “metaphorical” tone. Amid the clamor from the chancelleries of the Arab countries and the condemnation of the US State Department, Netanyahu has limited himself to reprimanding the Minister of Heritage and temporarily removing him from government sessions, relegated in time of war when power is concentrated. decision in the Security Cabinet. Opposition leader Yair Lapid demanded his immediate dismissal. “The presence of extremists in the Government puts us all in danger and harms the central objectives of the war: eliminating Hamas and releasing all the hostages,” he added in a tweet on the X network (formerly Twitter).
Netanyahu leads a coalition of six parties: the one he presides over (the conservative Likud); three from the extreme right that ran on a single list (Jewish Power, where Eliyahu is included; Religious Zionism and the homophobic party Noam); and two ultra-Orthodox, the Sephardic Shas and the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism. In total, they make up 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset or Parliament.
In the midst of the general budget cuts imposed by the war, the two ultra-Orthodox groups have continued to demand an increase in the amounts for financing the yeshivas (rabbinical schools) and Jewish religious teaching. The Minister of Finance and leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich has granted it. In turn, this same Monday, Smotrich has urged 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 sent to several Hebrew media outlets cited by the Efe agency, Smotrich has warned that the Israeli army is “failing to maintain acceptable levels of security” in the area. To this end, he has also requested the closure of roads in the olive harvesting areas, one of the main Palestinian agricultural activities at this time of year. The possible ban threatens to spark new protests in the West Bank, which during the first month of the conflict in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians at the hands of security forces and armed Jewish settler groups.
“The pure reality is that this Government of radical ministers is sabotaging the war strategy (against Hamas),” political columnist Nadav Eyal warned this Monday in the pages of the newspaper Yediot Ahronot. “While Smotrich appears incapable of advancing the recovery of the Israeli economy (in time of war), Eliyahu proposes committing genocide in Gaza,” Eyal adds.
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