Lapid: Israel heading for economic disaster, Netanyahu and Smotrich are lying to the public

Opposition leader Yair Lapid warns in remarks delivered at a Yesh Atid faction meeting that Israel is heading for an economic disaster at the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

“The finance minister and prime minister both issued statements yesterday in which they said that the lowering of Israel’s credit rating is a result of the war,” Lapid says, referring to the decision by Fitch to downgrade Israel’s rating from A+ to A. “That is a lie. Both of them are lying to the public.”

“Already by last July, months before the war, rating companies issued a negative forecast for the Israeli economy, and said that if the reckless mismanagement of the economy continued, the rating would be lowered,” Lapid continues, warning that without “a responsible government that will pass a responsible budget” the rating would continue to drop.

Israel’s middle class would be impacted the most by a weak economy, Lapid says, appealing to Yesh Atid’s core voter base.

“In an economic crash, there will also be a security risk,” he says. “The Israeli economy is the thing that pays for the security expenses. An economic crisis will lead to the fact that at our worst moment, we will have no way to finance our security needs.”

He says that the government will be unable to do what is needed in order to repair the economy, and claims the only thing that has saved Israel from disaster until now is the fact that when he left office after his brief tenure as prime minister, he left the economy in good shape.

“The day I left the Prime Minister’s Office, the State of Israel had a budget surplus,” he says. “We left them billions of shekels in the coffers. All they had to do was manage it responsibly, and they just couldn’t.”