Gantz’s Blue and White hits back at Labor after settlements approval criticism

Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party fires back at the Labor party after the fellow coalition faction criticized him over the approval of plans for new West Bank settlement homes.

“Someone who calls for refusal to enlist shouldn’t preach about diplomatic and security responsibility,” Blue and White writes on Twitter.

The tweet apparently refers to comments that Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, who heads Labor, made about the efforts to free captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit during an Army Radio broadcast in 2010, when she was still a journalist.

“I don’t think that women need to send their kids to the army. When the government in Israel doesn’t make efforts… they need to stop being ready to send their kids to the army without consideration,” she said at the time.

Public Security Minister Omer Barlev of the Labor party quickly responds to Blue and White.

“No one in Blue and White will preach to me, or us, about diplomatic and security responsibility,” he says.