From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
At rowdy cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said to condemn mob breaking into IDF bases, but compare it to anti-government protests
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"
Today’s cabinet meeting erupts in chaos and mutual recriminations over yesterday’s break-ins at two IDF bases by far-right activists and MKs angry over the arrest of nine servicemen accused of seriously abusing a Palestinian security prisoner.
According to Hebrew media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells government ministers that “we do not break into bases,” but also rails against “selective enforcement” and compares the break-ins to highway blockages by anti-government protesters.
In response, Social Equality Minister May Golan (Likud) declares that the protesters “came to support the soldiers because the people can’t accept that heroic fighters who have been risking their lives for nine months are being arrested.”
This prompts Interior Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) to condemn Netanyahu’s comparison and insist that the far-right demonstrators cannot be allowed to “endanger the IDF like that.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli also insists there is no comparison, drawing Golan’s ire and allegations of demagoguery. Hitting back, Chikli asks if Golan is representing the far-right Otzma Yehudit party rather than Likud.
Chikli then condemns National Security Minister and Otzma Yehudit chief Itamar Ben Gvir, saying that “there are those who support the mob and there are those who do not.”
“Those who understand the army know that it is not allowed to do this, unlike [people like] Ben Gvir who did not serve in the army who say it is fine,” Chikli states.
After Military Police arrested nine soldiers suspected of abusing a prisoner, members of Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party set out to Sde Teiman, where politicians and activists broke in and demonstrated. Protesters and MKs later stormed the Beit Lid base where the suspects are being held.
Among those who broke into Sde Teiman were Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit) and MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism).
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