Smotrich: Formation of government with Arab party ‘a thousand times’ worse than Oct. 7 failures

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claims that Naftali Bennett’s decision to form his 2021-2022 government, which included the Arab Ra’am party, was a far greater disaster for Israel than Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 were taken hostage, and which led to a multifront war in which some 900 others have been killed.

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

He argues 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.

“Someone who knowingly sold the State of Israel to its enemies… is much graver than someone who erred, slipped, failed,” he insists. “A politician who lied, stole, betrayed his values, partners and promises, and sold the country to terror supporters, assassinated democracy and public trust in the political system and in Zionism, is a thousand times graver than the biggest failure imaginable, which is a failure and not a purposeful act.”

Neither he nor the interviewer points out that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been the first to try his best to form a government with Ra’am, a scenario that was thwarted only by the insistence of Smotrich himself.

Smotrich says October 7 must be probed, but argues it stems from a decades-long mistaken approach that he continuously argued against, including criticizing Netanyahu. But he commends the premier for changing this approach after the Hamas attack.

He says he still has serious disagreements with Netanyahu. “I still think the war must end with changes in Israel’s borders, in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and of course in Judea and Samaria,” he says, using the biblical name for the West Bank, and remarking that he believes Netanyahu is wrong for not pursuing this goal.

However, he asserts that Netanyahu is a better choice than opposition leaders who “led a surrender campaign” by calling throughout the war for a hostage deal with Hamas.

Smotrich acknowledges that in the upcoming election, the government needs to answer to the public about the October 7 disaster, but also about what he describes as the immense achievements during the war and the changing of a decades-long policy of putting diplomacy at the forefront and making the army smaller.