‘A crybaby and a coward’: Lapid slams Netanyahu for complaining about incitement
Opposition leader says he gets ‘many’ threats but doesn’t moan; Likud falsely accuses him of normalizing political violence and bringing ‘the next political murder closer’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid dismissed Benjamin Netanyahu as a “crybaby and a coward” on Monday, after the prime minister held a two-hour cabinet discussion on Sunday railing against incitement by critics of the government.
Lapid’s comments, in turn, prompted Netanyahu’s Likud party to falsely accuse the Yesh Atid chairman of refusing to condemn incitement against the premier.
Reading journalists a threatening letter wishing death and illness upon him and his family, Lapid declared that he has never complained about threats before, despite receiving “many” such missives.
“Have you heard about it? Did I hold a press conference? Did I hold a two-hour special faction discussion?” the Opposition leader asked ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset. “Yes, there are threats and there is incitement. It’s a terrible and sad part of the world we live in. Everyone who reaches a senior position goes through it.”
“When I was prime minister, they came to me and told me that there were serious threats against my life. I said, ‘Why is this my business? Inform the Shin Bet,’ and returned to my work,” Lapid continued.
“I repeat and condemn any incitement, but here is a sentence that is not incitement: Netanyahu is a whiny, bad, and failed prime minister, who is only concerned with himself and his personal affairs, and he should go home.”
Following this weekend’s assassination attempt against former US president Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs screened a compilation of video clips showing critics of the government engaging in “incitement against the prime minister” during Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
In the short video, various people, including anti-government protesters, could be heard deriding Netanyahu as a “traitor,” “Satan,” and an “enemy of the people.” Some of those featured appeared to be threatening violence against him, including one woman who stated that “if the hostages don’t return, we will be waiting with a noose.”
The screening was followed by a two-hour debate on the issue, during which ministers pointed fingers at the justice system, law enforcement, and the attorney general for what they said was unchecked violent speech by members of the public against Netanyahu and his family.
Responding to Lapid’s criticism on Monday evening, a Likud spokesman accused him of “refus[ing] to condemn the acts of incitement and the calls for the assassination of the prime minister and his family members.
“Lapid’s silence normalizes the violence and brings the next political murder closer,” Likud alleged.
Responding to the allegations against its leader in a statement, Yesh Atid accused Likud of lying and noted that Lapid had “condemned the incitement against Netanyahu today in front of cameras at the faction meeting.”
“He only stated the obvious: every soldier in Gaza is more threatened than Netanyahu, every female fighter in Jenin is in greater danger than he is, every kidnapped observer deserves more discussion in the government about what she is going through,” the Yesh Atid spokesman said, adding that “only a cowardly and whiny leader like Netanyahu talks about himself before he talks about them.”
Despite Likud’s claim to the contrary, Lapid did come out against such rhetoric on Monday, stating that he condemned “any expression of incitement” and that those threatening Netanyahu also “threaten Israeli democracy” and “should be investigated and prosecuted.”
However, he insisted that while violence and threats against the prime minister are unacceptable, “Netanyahu is not a victim; he is a crybaby and a coward.”
“There is no two-hour discussion about the 101 victims of Kibbutz Be’eri, there is no two-hour discussion about the soldier who was seriously injured in the north by a drone. What about the threat to her life? Is her life less important? Why is there no two-hour discussion about the five female observation soldiers held hostage in Gaza,” Lapid asked. “Only incitement against [Netanyahu] is worth two hours of discussion? Is that the only thing that matters?”
“I don’t remember him saying anything when Naftali Bennett’s child received an envelope with a bullet and threats against his life,” he added, referring to a threat against the then-prime minister in 2022.
Ministers in Israel have been quick to compare incitement against Netanyahu to threats against Trump, claiming that the premier too could face an assassination attempt if public discourse is left unchecked.
“It’s a miracle that what happened in the United States hasn’t happened until now,” Justice Minister Yair Levin said on Sunday. “We’ve warned that it could happen here. The justice system has abandoned the prime minister.”
Following the screening of the video, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was reported by Channel 12 to have placed the blame for incitement squarely on the shoulders of Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara, with whom he has publicly sparred several times in the past, as well as on other lawmakers.
“The time has come to hold a hearing for those who prevent indictment, prevent enforcement, and enable incitement,” Ben Gvir said.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also seemed to blame the attorney general and Netanyahu’s political opponents for facilitating incitement during his far-right Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday.
Claiming that Israel is experiencing “unprecedented incitement against the prime minister and against the members of the government,” Smotrich demanded that “the leaders of the left, Lapid, Gantz and Baharav-Miara… stop the dangerous incitement.”
Several members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been found guilty of, investigated over, or were accused of incitement.
Ben Gvir was convicted for incitement to violence and supporting a terror group in 2007 for distributing stickers that read “Expel the Arab enemy” and “Kahane was right.”
MK Zvika Fogel, a member of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, was questioned by police in 2023 after he explicitly backed extremist settlers who torched Palestinian homes and vehicles in the northern West Bank town of Huwara. The investigation was closed in April.
Last March, Smotrich apologized after calling for Huwara to be “wiped out,” claiming he did not realize that the remarks could be interpreted as a military order.
Netanyahu himself has been repeatedly accused by the left over the years of encouraging incitement that led to the 1995 assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, or at least of contributing to the incendiary political climate that led to the murder.
Ben Gvir, too, has been accused of having played a part in the discourse leading up to Rabin’s murder, as he came into the public eye when he was filmed bragging about having stolen the emblem from Rabin’s car, weeks before his murder.
“Just as we got to this emblem, we can get to Rabin,” the future ultranationalist minister said at the time.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
