Ahead of Knesset vote, Lapid warns that those who back budget update ‘won’t be forgiven’

In a fiery speech from the Knesset podium, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid blasts the supplemental budget being voted on today in the plenum, declaring that those voting in favor “will not be forgiven” and that their children “will be ashamed of you today.”

The budget includes some NIS 28.9 billion ($7.87 billion) to cover the costs of the war against Hamas in Gaza and the skirmishes on the border with Lebanon, including increased military expenditure and the need to cover civilian expenses such as accommodation for the at least 130,000 evacuees from the north and south.

Opposition MKs strongly object to funding increases they say are for sectoral interests unrelated to the war effort, particularly large amounts for the Settlements and National Projects Ministry, helmed by Orit Strock, of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party.

“We are a country in which everything has changed. This is not the same country, and it won’t be [the same]. Not after [the] Shejaiya [ambush in Gaza in which nine soldiers were killed], not after [the October 7 Hamas massacre at the] Nova [festival]. There isn’t one person in the country who doesn’t understand this, apart from the person who put this shameful budget on the Knesset’s agenda,” says Lapid.

“You are the ones who are dealing in the worst and most cynical kind of politics, while the State of Israel is fighting for its life,” Lapid charges.