Likud takes aim at Bennett for recruiting former civil servant with ties to protest movement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party assails former premier Naftali Bennett for recruiting the Finance Ministry’s ex-director general Keren Terner to his electoral slate.

“Bennett’s true face was once again exposed today when he added Keren Terner from the Brothers in Arms movement to his party — an organization that encouraged refusal to serve in the IDF, thereby weakening Israel and harming our security,” Likud says in a statement, referring to a reservist-led protest group.

“Just as he did last time, Bennett will again form a government with the left and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Likud continues, referring to Bennett’s 2021-22 government with Yair Lapid, which included left-wing parties as well as Mansour Abbas’s Islamist party Ra’am.

Despite having previously courted Ra’am during coalition negotiations, Netanyahu has since threatened to outlaw the Arab political party, claiming it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Abbas has repeatedly denied any connection to the pan-Islamist movement, which spawned Hamas.

Bennett’s party, temporarily called “Bennett 2026,” calls the statement against Terner “a smear campaign by Likud’s poison machine.”

The statement notes that Terner served under Netanyahu as director general in both the transportation and finance ministries.

According to the statement, she volunteered with Brothers in Arms as part of the organization’s civilian emergency response hub following the Hamas-led terror onslaught of October 7, 2023. At the time, Brothers in Arms was among several anti-government organizations that mobilized some 15,000 volunteers to rescue and support fellow citizens as the government scrambled to react.

“In Israel’s most difficult days, when all state systems collapsed, when government ministers fled, Keren Terner stepped up to help Israeli citizens. That’s exactly what Israel has been missing, and we are proud of Keren Terner!” says the statement from Bennett’s party.

The government has repeatedly attacked  Brothers in Arms, attempted to block its members’ military promotions, and sought to restrict their participation in public life, over the group’s central role in the mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul plans in 2023.

Netanyahu’s supporters often accuse the group of harming state security by threatening to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the government went ahead with its bid to weaken the judiciary.