From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
War cabinet observer Eisenkot accuses Smotrich, Ben Gvir of ‘blackmailing with political threats’
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"
Minister Gadi Eisenkot, an observer in the war cabinet and member of the National Unity party, implicitly slams Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for harming national security by issuing “political threats.”
“The cabinet defined the goals of the war six months ago. Over the last day, two cabinet members have been blackmailing with political threats,” he states, without naming the pair.
Both Ben Gvir and Smotrich have expressed opposition to a deal that would bring about the release of some of the 129 hostages abducted on October 7 and still held by Hamas in Gaza in return for Israel scaling back or temporarily halting the fighting, saying it would undermine the government’s right to exist and lead to its dissolution.
Describing their actions as “a grave phenomenon that harms Israel’s national security,” Eisenkot states that he “will only be a partner in a government that makes decisions based on the national interests of the State of Israel, and not on political considerations.”
