Far-right MK snipes at Gantz, Eisenkot: ‘Not sure if PM would have attacked Iran if they were still in government’

By Sam Sokol 19 June 2025, 10:16 am

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

L: MK Gadi Eisenkot attends a National Unity faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 26, 2025. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90); R: National Unity Party Leader MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 5, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Knesset National Security Committee head MK Zvika Fogel, a member of the far right Otzma Yehudit party, launches an attack on the centrist National Unity party, arguing that if they were in the government Israel may not have attacked Iran’s nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a “brave decision” to attack Iran, he tells Haredi radio station Kol Barama.

“October 7 was a trigger. We reached a point where there was no choice. There was an opportunity and ability here, with the backing he received from the government. I’m not sure, if Gantz and Eisenkot were in the government, that he would have made this decision,” he says.

National Unity chief MK Benny Gantz and his number two, MK Gadi Eisenkot, both former IDF chiefs of staff, joined the coalition after October 7. They later quit the government over sharp differences with the prime minister regarding the prosecution of the war in Gaza.