Opposition Pans Netanyahu as a ‘Failed Prime Minister’

The Knesset opposition slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a pair of rare back-to-back press conferences, accusing him of lying to the nation and placing his own political interests above those of the public.

“It was a horror show by a failed prime minister who replaced reality with a presentation,” declared Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, arguing that the outcome of Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza would be that “the hostages will die, soldiers will die, the economy will fall apart and our international standing will collapse.”

“Netanyahu has no majority in the Knesset, and he has no majority among the people,” Lapid stated. “He heads an illegitimate minority government, and he is unable to even manage it. This government cannot [be allowed to] drag us into the occupation of Gaza.”

Days after his cabinet approved a new major offensive in Gaza City to root out Hamas forces there, the premier denied that Israel intends to occupy Gaza, saying his intention was to swiftly end the war rather than prolong it. He described how a future “civilian administration” would be established in the Strip to govern Palestinians in a manner that does not threaten Israel, while avoiding saying who would take part in it.

As security forces and hostages’ families decried the Gaza City plan as potentially endangering the hostages’ lives, Netanyahu argued that an Israeli takeover of Gaza would in fact enable the return of the living hostages.

Netanyahu also asserted that he was working to recruit the ultra-Orthodox community into the IDF, rejecting claims that he is deliberately delaying this process to gain political support from the Haredi parties.

He appeared to blame the delay in passing a law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment on former Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, whom he said had tried “every way to prolong committee meetings again and again so that there would be no legislation.”

“Now we have moved to a process where there will be legislation, there will be a law, and there will be enlistment,” he asserted.

Last month, the Haredi United Torah Judaism party quit the coalition, after being presented with a copy of a proposed enlistment bill prepared by Edelstein which, it argued, had violated the terms of a supposed compromise reached in June. They were quickly followed by Shas, which, while quitting the government, has remained part of the coalition. Netanyahu’s Likud then ousted Edelstein, replacing him with MK Boaz Bismuth, who is expected to seek an arrangement that will satisfy Haredi parties.

“The one who just fired the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to pass an evasion law cannot tell our fighters that they must go and be killed in Gaza,” argued Lapid in his statement, calling Netanyahu’s defense policies “a danger to the State of Israel and its security.”

“Instead, a deal needs to be made, all the hostages returned, the war ended, and Egypt brought in to run Gaza over the coming years,” he argued.

Other opposition party heads condemned Netanyahu’s remarks as well.

“After 22 months of war, after promising that ‘we are one step away from total victory,’ after 674 days of our hostages languishing in captivity, Netanyahu tonight declared: ‘I have instructed the IDF to defeat Hamas.’ Ridiculous. As if until today, IDF soldiers were touring in Gaza,” tweeted The Democrats party chairman Yair Golan.

“What we saw tonight is not ‘one step from victory,’ but the most severe security failure in Israel’s history,” he wrote.