“Maybe it’s time to replace [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich wrote on Twitter late Saturday night.
תגידו, אחרי אין ספור אירועי טרור ולינצ’ים של האויב הערבי בימים האחרונים ואחרי מטח טילים מעזה לישובי הדרום נתניהו אשכרה קרא הערב “להרגיע את הרוחות מכל הצדדים”??? יכול להיות שבאמת הגיע הזמן להחליף אותו. pic.twitter.com/oZFvCGj6Oh— בצלאל סמוטריץ’ (@bezalelsm) April 24, 2021
His remarks follow the barrage of rockets launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip Saturday night, as well as the ongoing violent riots in Jerusalem.
“Tell me, after countless terror attacks and lynchings from the ‘Arab enemy’ in the last few days and after a barrage of [rockets] from Gaza at the communities in the South, Netanyahu wants us to ‘calm down on both sides?'” he tweeted alongside a video of violence in Jerusalem, adding “Maybe it’s time to replace him.”
Coalition Chairman Miki Zohar of Netanyahu’s Likud Party shot back on social media, calling the Religious Zionist Party leader “Ungrateful.”
“You only passed the threshold because the Likud gave you three seats [in the election],” Zohar charged. “A little modesty wouldn’t hurt.”
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Smotrich soon fired back, writing that “if anyone here who says they ‘gave me’ three seats actually did so, I’d have 15 seats today.”
The Religious Zionist Party leader has long been considered a major part of Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc. In fact, before the last election, Netanyahu had even told representatives of the Ani Shulman Party that Smotrich, along with the ultra-Orthodox parties, “do whatever I say,” as revealed in a leaked video obtained by N12.
But Smotrich seems to disagree, and told Zohar as much.
Netanyahu “did me no favors,” he wrote, adding that “throughout, I emphasized that I am not personally committed to [Netanyahu], but to the values of the Right and religious Zionism.”
And now, it seems he feels the prime minister no longer reflects these values.
“Abandoning the State of Israel and the security of its people to Arab rioters… is not part of my values,” he tweeted, adding “just like the formation of a government that rests and depends on supporters of terrorism and who deny [Israel’s] existence.
“It’s time for you and your friends to internalize this: I am right-wing, not a Bibist,” he concluded, using the term to refer to supporters of Netanyahu.
This is a developing story.
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