Ministers Smotrich, Regev booed off stage at Eilat conference by protesters
Crowd shouts ‘shame’ and ‘leave’ at finance and transportation ministers, who both depart before finishing their interviews
Both Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Transportation Minister Miri Regev walked off stage at a real estate conference in Eilat on Wednesday after being jeered at by the crowd.
As he was being interviewed on stage, Smotrich, of the far-right Religious Zionism party, was heckled by members of the crowd, with one woman yelling at him to “Go fight [in Gaza] instead of my children.”
When Smotrich then referred to a speaker from the previous day, a man shouted at him, “[His] children are in the army with mine. Your son is a shirker.”
In response, Smotrich threatened to leave if the crowd didn’t “change the discourse.” The threat was met with a chorus of “Go!” that continued as he walked off stage amid applause.
According to Channel 13, he was later convinced to return to the stage to finish giving his speech and interview.
Likud’s Regev, who spoke before Smotrich and was also jeered, returned fire at first, rather than immediately storming out.
סמוטריץ' גם היה היום בכנס וגורש, התחיל לומר "אני קם והולך, אני אחרי השביעי לאוקט…" ואת השאר כבר לא נדע. ???????? pic.twitter.com/SEqv4MTtY9
— Itai Leshem (@Itai_Leshem) March 27, 2024
Before walking off stage, Regev told the hecklers that “this won’t help you. We will continue to act for the people of Israel,” she said as the shouts continued.
She also told the hecklers they “clearly haven’t learned anything from October 7,” referring to the state of extreme polarization in Israeli society ahead of Hamas’s devastating onslaught, which came after close to a year of mass protests against the government’s largely shelved judicial overhaul plan.
Instead, she accused them of “continuing with the same divisive and inciting language,” adding: “I expect Israel society, expect everyone to stop this inciteful and divisive dialogue, to unite, to bring the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas, and then we’ll return, investigate, see who is guilty, who caused this situation.”
Regev then departed without completing her interview.
The question of responsibility has weighed heavily on Israeli political discourse in recent months, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly refusing to accept personal responsibility for the failures which allowed October 7 to happen, while most other government and military figures have admitted their responsibility in the months and years leading up to the attack.
