From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Lapid party ad depicts PM, Smotrich as burglars robbing Israeli homes
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party runs an AI-generated ad on social media showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, all dressed as robbers, breaking into citizens’ homes and stealing their money.
The video is published following the passage of the 2026 budget, which massively increased funding for Haredi institutions, and which Lapid declared was not a budget but rather “a robbery.”
Following the 2026 budget vote, Yesh Atid runs an AI generated advertisement showing Deri, Bibi and Smotrich dressed as robbers breaking into people’s homes in the middle of the night to steal their money pic.twitter.com/wb3UtL4vUd
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) March 31, 2026
The airing of the AI-generated attack ad comes not long after the Central Elections Committee ordered Netanyahu’s Likud party to take down a manipulated image that appeared to show Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett joining hands with Arab party leaders in celebration of an announcement that the Arab factions would undertake efforts to run together in the next elections.
According to Radio 103FM, Smotrich responded to criticism of the budget by attacking the former Lapid-Bennett government, stating that Israelis had woken up “to a campaign of lies as if their money had been stolen from them. The previous government gave money to terror supporters.”
Smotrich was referring to Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party, a member of Bennett and Lapid’s short-lived coalition, which included parties from across the political spectrum. Abbas has condemned terror on multiple occasions, but has been attacked for his Islamist party’s historic — though not current — connection to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yesh Atid’s video was followed by another AI clip shared by The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, which showed National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir giving Deri a wad of cash in exchange for a rope, an apparent reference to Shas’ support for Ben Gvir’s controversial death penalty for terrorists law, which passed in the Knesset last night.
And now Gilad Kariv (The Democrats) is sharing an AI video of Deri and Ben Gvir exchanging a lot of cash for a rope (presumably to be used for a noose) which is a reference to both the massive allocation for haredi education and Deri’s support for the death penalty bill pic.twitter.com/SeenB0YJDi
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) March 31, 2026
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