From the Liveblog of
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Gafni comes out against Goldknopf: ‘We all bear responsibility. The situation is not good’
A top Haredi lawmaker came out against comments made by Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, saying that the members of the government bear responsibility for the situation the country is in amid the war against Hamas.
“We all bear responsibility, even today,” MK Moshe Gafni says. “Whoever says the situation is good — the situation is not good! I, like my colleagues in the government, bear responsibility.”
Gafni says the matter of the hostages held by terrorists in Gaza should keep elected officials busy day and night until they are all home, the Ynet news site reports. Gafni is the head of the Degel Hatorah faction in Goldknopf’s United Torah Judaism.
At a ceremony for the laying of a cornerstone at an educational institution in the northern town Karmiel, Gafni also pushes back against recent calls by ministers and lawmakers from the government for the resettlement of Gaza.
“I don’t think at all that we should go to settle in Gaza,” says Gafni, according to Ynet. “We should build here in the Galilee, in Karmiel.”
Goldknopf attended a recent conference on the resettlement of Gaza and called for the reconstruction of Jewish settlements there.
Gafni’s comments come a day after Goldknopf told the ultra-Orthodox news outlet Kikar Hashabbat that no government members will resign at the end of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
“I don’t see anybody resigning, who is it bad for? There are 64 [government] members, there are government ministries, everything is working and there is an organized budget,” Goldknopf said.
“What, the day after a war the government has to fall?” he asked. “What does the government have to do with the war?”
The housing minister evaded two questions on the matter of responsibility for the October 7 terror onslaught carried out by Hamas in southern Israel, saying the matter will be investigated by a committee “that will finish its work in 2028, maybe 2027.”
The Times of Israel Community.