Likud accuses former Bennett-Lapid government of using Meron tragedy as ‘political weapon’ against Netanyahu

By Sam Sokol 6 March 2024, 4:54 pm

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Sam 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"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the scene of the disaster on Mount Meron, in northern Israel on April 30, 2021. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party accuses former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett of turning the 2021 Mount Meron disaster “into a political weapon” against Netanyahu, after a state commission of inquiry found him personally responsible for the incident, in which dozens of Jewish pilgrims people were trampled to death.

“The Meron disaster is a tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims. In practice, the government has already implemented necessary conclusions” and last year’s pilgrimage was carried out without incident, a Likud spokesman says in a statement promising to “examine the need to draw additional operational lessons to prevent the recurrence of a disaster of this kind.”

“However, we are sorry that for the first time in the country’s history, the government headed by Bennett and Lapid established a commission of inquiry against its predecessor on the political right, and that a key member of the commission is Lapid’s associate, Shlomo Yanai, who received an offer from him for a place on the Yesh Atid list for the Knesset,” the spokesman alleged.

“Lapid’s cynical and deliberate attempt to turn the Meron disaster into a political weapon will not succeed.”

The Likud spokesman’s statement stands in stark contrast with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, also a member of Likud, who served as public security minister at the time of the disaster and was also listed as one of those bearing personal responsibility by the commission.

“Since the Meron disaster, I carry with me the grief of the families,” he says, admitting that while there was “a long-standing failure in organizing the event and the infrastructure of the place” it still “happened on my watch… and therefore I am responsible.”

The state commission of inquiry established by then-prime minister Bennett in June 2021 in the wake of the disaster released its final report today, stating that there was “a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses that visit the site.”

However, it declined to recommend any sanction for the prime minister.