“Professional, paid anarchists” and “bloodthirsty, biased media” are responsible for the politicization of Remembrance Day this year and for haredi ministers’ announcing that they will not attend ceremonies at military cemeteries, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich charged in a Facebook post on Monday morning.
Smotrich heard in recent days the “offensive, arrogant, condescending, ignorant, ringing slap in the face,” directed at haredi ministers and Knesset members, which were “blind to processes” of haredi integration into Israeli society, the finance minister wrote, arguing that there has been in recent years a “delicate process” in which haredim believed that they will be able to maintain their beliefs and way of life while increasingly becoming part of the “Jewish and Israeli social fabric.”
According to Smotrich, this process was evident in the haredi public’s growing awareness and respect towards Remembrance Day.
The finance minister called on his “haredi brothers” to ignore what he claimed was the insult of them being asked to stay away from military cemeteries.
“We are building our togetherness here because that is what is correct, good and true.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
“We are building our togetherness here because that is what is correct, good and true,” and “no one has the right to sabotage this,” Smotrich wrote, adding that he believed that the ministers should insist on appearing at military cemeteries, and continue to “contribute their enormous contribution to Israeli society.”
An IDF soldier salutes the grave of a fallen soldier at the Har Herzl military cemetery ahead of Israel’s Remembrance Day, April 23, 2023. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)Smotrich claimed that most of his “brothers in the Left” were “disdainful of the irresponsible and uninhibited anarchism that slaughters every remaining sacred cow.” He requested that they make their voice heard and not allow the “extreme and violent fringe” to take over the discourse.
To his “brothers in the Right,” Smotrich wrote that for those who still believed that the protests during the past four months were related to the government’s judicial reform, it was clear now that its leaders turned it into a “destructive demonstration of hate that brings out so much evil”, and to an “ugly struggle for control, power and hegemony” whose purpose is to “force upon us with tyranny radical minority positions.”
Smotrich concluded that he hoped that the majority of Israeli citizens will put the “handful of barn-burners” in their “true, negligible proportions”, and that the holiness of the day will be maintained so as to avoid “irreversible damage.”
Haredi MKs cancel participation in memorial ceremonies
Smotrich’s post came after Housing and Construction Minister MK Yizhak Goldknopf and Culture and Sports Deputy Minister Yaakov Tessler from the United Torah Judaism party, and Minister within the Education Ministry Haim Biton of Shas, announced on Sunday that they would not participate in their scheduled memorial ceremonies after bereaved families turned to them and requested that they stay away.
Other ministers and MKs who announced they would refrain from appearing at cemeteries included National Diplomacy Minister Galit Distal-Atbaryan (Likud), MK Zvika Fogel (Otmza Yehudit) and MK Orna Barbivay (Yesh Atid).
In a letter to Eli Ben-Shem, chairman of the Yad L’Banim organization which is responsible for the ceremonies, a group of bereaved families who oppose the judicial reforms and calls itself “With Their Death They Commanded” – short for the phrase “with their death they commanded us life,” but also of the phrase “with their death they commanded us democracy,” which group members displayed on their signs at protests – requested on April 13 that politicians stay away this year, in order to avoid the commotions that may break out in the cemeteries.
In a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week, Yad L’Banim chairman Eli Ben-Shem and representatives of a number of other bereaved families’ organizations relayed the concerns of what they said were thousands of families. Gallant refused, arguing that ministers and Knesset members represented the state and their presence had symbolic value.
While some families were opposed to the presence of any politicians, others expressed opposition specifically to those who did not serve in the IDF, hence the specific opposition to the appearance of haredi MKs, most of whom did not serve. Others only expressed opposition to specific ministers such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is scheduled to attend the memorial ceremony at the Beersheba military cemetery on Tuesday.
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