Regev insists she organize Oct. 7 memorial, attacks Herzog for offering to host it
Facing backlash from hostage families and southern communities, minister says she’ll meet PM Sunday but believes president ‘picked a side’ by issuing letter without contacting her
Transportation Minister Miri Regev insisted Saturday that the plan to put her in charge of the state’s October 7 anniversary memorial should not change, and slammed President Isaac Herzog’s offer to host the politically fraught event at his Jerusalem residence.
The government tapped Regev on August 18 to manage the commemoration, drawing immediate backlash in light of her stewardship of state Independence Day ceremonies, which she has been accused of using to put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a pedestal. This year, hostages’ families held their own Independence Day ceremony.
Many Gaza border communities have accused the government of planning to use the official ceremony to avoid responsibility for the role it played in failing to prevent Hamas terror assault and for failing the communities in the aftermath of the massacre.
On Friday, Herzog offered to hold the state memorial ceremony at the President’s Residence, in a public letter addressed to Netanyahu. Herzog suggested that the event be held under the president’s purview “in the interest of dampening the flames of controversy and preventing unnecessary quarrels and disputes between different parts of society.”
A ceremony at the President’s Residence would be “respectful, unifying, stately and modest, and of course without political trappings,” Herzog wrote. “The ceremony will include state symbols, as is customary, including lowering the flag to half-mast and saying Kaddish [the Jewish mourners’ prayer].”
But Regev disagreed Saturday evening, claiming that Herzog had “picked a side” by issuing his proposal without first reaching out to her.
“State ceremonies aren’t held at the President’s Residence, this cannot be,” she told Channel 14. “This needs to be held in the south.”
“With the letter he issued, he picked a side,” Regev claimed. “It would have been possible to sit down and reach understandings. I believe that the president’s intention was good, but as someone who knows me and talks to me, he could have come and talked to me and the prime minister before the letter.”
She added that she was set to meet Netanyahu on Sunday to discuss the matter, stressing that her opinion is that the decision to have her organize the event should be upheld.
On Thursday, Regev dismissed the boycott calls and objections as “noise,” further intensifying criticism from the families of the victims and the hostages, as well as opposition members, who accused her of dismissing their concerns and ignoring their pain. She also said that others were welcome to hold tribute ceremonies of their own, but compared these to contentious annual joint Israeli-Palestinian events held on Memorial Day.
On Friday, Regev accused the media of “distorting” what she had said.
“When I spoke about noise, I was speaking about those who incite against me, harm me, compare me to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and threaten my life. At no point did I speak of bereaved families, hostage families or any communities.”
The planned October 7 ceremony memorializing the victims of the terror onslaught, in which Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, will not be live-streamed but instead filmed and televised later or available on demand so as not to clash with smaller local memorial events that may be held on the same day.
Regev said Thursday that the event will be held in the south because that is where the massacre took place. It will also be held without an audience so as to avoid offending anyone who should have been there and wasn’t invited considering it would be impossible to seat all the victims, their families, and the people who fought or performed heroics on October 7.
The authority for state events, under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office, said in a statement Wednesday: “The ceremony is still in its formative stages, and at this point we have not reached out to any local community on the subject.”
