Smotrich draws storm of criticism after blaming IDF chief for October 7 failures

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich draws a storm of criticism after he blames IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi for the country’s failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

“This IDF chief of staff brought us one of the greatest disasters in the history of the country,” Smotrich said in an interview with Channel 12 earlier today.

National Unity MK Chili Tropper attacks Smotrich’s “insolent” comments in a post on Facebook. “Smotrich talks about the need for trust in the army chiefs and claims that trust has been lost.”

“Well, according to all indicators, the army actually enjoys the highest level of trust in Israeli society, while Smotrich and the Netanyahu government are suffering from a tremendous crisis of trust from the point of view of the Israeli public,” he writes, apparently referring to survey results released earlier this week that showed public support for the IDF at record highs.

MK Matan Kahana, also from National Unity, says of Smotrich, “A senior minister in the worst and most terrible government we’ve ever seen, the government that is responsible for the most terrible tragedy that has befallen the Jewish people since the Holocaust, does not even begin to understand the meaning of ‘responsibility.'”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid calls for the finance minister’s resignation. “First, accept responsibility for your failure as a government and resign. Only then will you have the right to talk about others,” Lapid writes on X, formerly Twitter.