Addressing the opening sitting of the fourth session of the Twenty-Fifth Knesset on Monday, Leader of the Opposition MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said, “Mr. prime minister, I listened closely to your speech and wondered in what reality it takes place. You said here that we bombed Iran. Who was prime minister when Iran amassed its power? You said here that Hezbollah has 150,000 rockets — who was prime minister when Hezbollah amassed 150,000 rockets and deployed the Radwan Force on the border?
“You said here that we won the war — who was prime minister on October 7th, who neglected his post and brought upon us the greatest disaster to the Jewish people since the Holocaust? Who? The opposition? There is a limit — how long can you keep throwing the blame off you onto others?
“You spoke here, Mr. Prime Minister, about relations with the United States. I stood here as you did — there really was an emotional speech by president trump. In that speech there was a line people paid less attention to. president trump said, ‘Netanyahu wanted to continue the war and I told him to stop, so he had to stop.’ You have turned us into a vassal state. Time after time you stand here and say, ‘I alone know how to stand up to an American president.’
“The American president came and said, ‘I folded Netanyahu; I bent him and folded him.’ A vassal state — you should have stood here and said, ‘Mr. President, I appreciate that you said I should be pardoned, but that is an internal matter of the State of Israel and we are not an American vassal state.’
“I understand you’re excited about the ‘success’ of the economy after two credit-rating downgrades — the first in the country’s history — and after three years of consecutive negative growth. Is that the economic achievement? I know you don’t shop in supermarkets, that’s fine. Ask someone about the condition of Israel’s middle class — working people — while you maintain here 15 completely unnecessary government ministries, diverting billions in coalition funds, all on the backs of people who work, pay taxes, and did reserve duty this year.
Rabbi Doron Peretz, the father of Daniel Peretz, of blessed memory, stood in the cemetery last Thursday and said, ‘Everyone talks about the day after in Gaza; maybe we should talk about the day after in the State of Israel.’ If the day after in the State of Israel looks like this sitting, then Israel is heading to a very bad place. That won’t happen.”
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