From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 9, 2024
More opposition heads slam PM for focusing on his own legal woes in press conference
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
The Democrats party chairman Yair Golan slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for complaining about his press coverage while Israeli soldiers are dying in Gaza.
“Seven soldiers fell today, over 1,800 Israelis have been killed through terrorism and war since the establishment of the government. A hundred Israeli women and men are held hostage by Hamas. The worst security failure in the country’s history, and the prime minister whines about the media and his criminal trial,” Golan tweets following Netanyahu’s press conference this evening in Jerusalem, during which he blamed the media for failing to cover what he said was unfair treatment by the justice system.
“It is a shame for the country that this is what its leader looks like. He will be replaced very soon. That’s a promise,” he writes.
National Unity chairman Benny Gantz declares that Israel deserves a prime minister who “gets upset when he talks about our hostages and victims, and not when he is asked about himself.”
“Netanyahu confuses strength with weakness,” Gantz tweets, arguing that Netanyahu has failed to leverage military victory for diplomatic gains, to return the hostages replace Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip, to create regional alliances or to establish a state commission of inquiry into the failure to prevent the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Because of his corruption trial, “Netanyahu is crushing the justice system and society as a whole,” Gantz declares.
