Former prime minister Naftali Bennett sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday during his first public visit to the Knesset in years since leaving politics, saying that Netanyahu’s coalition was harming the IDF by encouraging draft evasion and not providing the military with more soldiers amid its manpower crisis.
“We are shouting the fighters’ cry: Give the IDF soldiers so it can win.
“The soldiers and reservists are being worn down under the burden of the missions. They are forced to abandon positions they captured simply because there are not enough soldiers. It cannot go on like this,” Bennett said.
The remarks came during the first faction press conference he held at the Knesset since merging parties with opposition leader Yair Lapid to form the Together Party, which is led by Bennett. Together is trailing Netanyahu’s Likud in recent polls.
Bennett said on his way to the Knesset that he was attempting to stop the outgoing government from legislating “the disgraceful draft exemption law.”
He arrived after the coalition’s bill to dissolve the Knesset passed its preliminary reading on Wednesday in the Knesset plenum, amid the crisis in Netanyahu’s coalition with the ultra-Orthodox parties over the controversial haredi draft bill, which began to be revised shortly before the vote.
Critics argue that the government’s draft bill is primarily intended to appease the haredi parties in Netanyahu’s coalition and would do little to increase enlistment.
IDF's urgent manpower shortage
The IDF has repeatedly warned of an urgent manpower shortage, particularly after more than two years of war.
In a direct address to Netanyahu, Bennett said he had three words to say to the “outgoing prime minister: It’s over. Let it go.”
Bennett also met with Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman during his visit to the Knesset, amid reports of mergers between parties in the opposition bloc.
The two released a statement saying they would continue a dialogue between both sides with the aim of replacing the government and forming a new one that would be “Zionist, statesmanlike, and liberal.”
Lapid spoke at the press conference after Bennett, where he said the election campaign “started today.”
“These will be elections between hope and fear. Between the fighters and draft evasion, between cleanliness and corruption, between those who take responsibility and those who only shift blame onto others,” Lapid said.
He added that the lawmakers in Yesh Atid had for four years “prevented the government from destroying the foundations of the state” and that the group will now be those who rebuild the country.
“That moves us from fear to hope,” Lapid said.