Ra’am leader says Smotrich’s remark that government with him is worse than Oct. 7 disrespects the murdered

Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas condemns Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over his statement that former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s decision to include his Islamist Ra’am party in a coalition was a far greater disaster than Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

“Smotrich has no respect for the 2,100 murdered individuals and their families,” tweets Abbas, referring to all those killed on October 7 and during the subsequent military conflict.

“This is a miserable and immoral statement. Even on its worst day, [Bennett’s] ‘government of change’ was a thousand times better than Smotrich’s ‘October 7 disaster government.’ Human life holds no value in Smotrich’s eyes, just as it holds no value for fanatical extremists anywhere else in the world. Soon, we will change that,” he adds.

Ayman Odeh, the chairman of the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party, also slams Smotrich, declaring on X that “what the racists and Kahanists say is not important, what matters is what we will do.”

“And we, the Arab citizens, together with the democratic Jews, will do everything, simply everything, to prevent Smotrich-Netanyahu-Ben Gvir from continuing to another term,” Odeh adds.

Asked during an interview with Radio 103FM what was the greater calamity — the formation of the previous government or the October 7 massacre — Smotrich replied: “Of course, the formation of the government with Mansour Abbas.”

He argued that while October 7 was a “tactical failure” that must be probed, a deed that was done on purpose is worse than something that happened unintentionally.

Following harsh condemnations by opposition lawmakers, Smotrich issued a statement claiming his words were “distorted” and comparing Ra’am to Hamas.

Last year, the Justice Ministry stated that it was dissolving the “Aid 48” association, a nonprofit connected to Ra’am, following an investigation over alleged money transfers to groups proscribed for terror links. The party itself was not implicated in any wrongdoing.

Though declaredly an Islamist, Abbas has courted controversy among his base by stating that Israel will always be a Jewish state, condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack, and calling on Palestinian terror groups to demilitarize.

In a statement last year, Ra’am blamed the Netanyahu government for funding Hamas and accused it of seeking to divert attention from its own mistakes.