A participant at a conference calling to resettle the Gaza Strip at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on January 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
War cabinet observer Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and current MK, joins a chorus of criticism aimed at politicians and others who attended a conference last night to push for Israel to reestablish civilian settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Eisenkot tells the Kan broadcaster that those who participated — especially MKs and ministers — are exacerbating societal divisions as if they hadn’t just seen the country get torn apart by the judicial overhaul protests of 2023.
“They didn’t learn a thing from what happened last year, about the importance of working with a wide national consensus and about solidarity in Israeli society,” he says.
War cabinet observer and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, with family and friends, at the funeral of his son Gal, in Herzliya on December 8, 2023. Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot was killed fighting in the Gaza Strip on December 7. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
“While troops are fighting shoulder to shoulder in a war with unparalleled justification, and while we are choosing to look for what unites us, even if there are disagreements… others are finding time for an event that sunders Israeli society, increases the lack of trust in the government and its elected officials, and really sharpens divisions over that which brings us together,” adds Eisenkot, whose son was killed in the fighting in Gaza.
Education Minister Yoav Kisch also aims criticism at the conference, telling Army Radio it was a mistake to hold the event. “It’s not right to get into this conversation now. This isn’t the time. We need to focus the discourse on unity for our troops.”
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Monday, January 29, 2024
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