Netanyahu Makes Offer to Ben Gvir and Smotrich to Stay in Government

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has presented an offer to Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir in an effort to secure their continued participation in his government.

The proposal, reported Tuesday evening on Kan News, came after both leaders voiced their strong opposition to a proposed hostage deal. Ben-Gvir also threatened to step down from the coalition. Netanyahu’s offer reportedly included bolstered security measures along the seam line and increased construction in Judea and Samaria.

This morning, Ben-Gvir urged Smotrich to join forces with him to mount a unified stance against the proposed hostage deal.

“The emerging deal is a surrender deal to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir stated. “Over the past year, using our political power, we have repeatedly managed to prevent this deal from being implemented. However, others have joined the government and as they support the deal, we are no longer a deciding factor. This means that the Prime Minister will refrain from signing the deal only if the force that is balancing on the other side is large enough to prevent him from doing so.”

Reaching out directly to Smotrich, Ben-Gvir said, “I am calling on you my friend to join me and work together against the deal of surrender to Hamas. The Religious Zionism party alone does not have the ability to prevent the deal. I suggest we go to the Prime Minister together and notify him that if he promotes the deal, we will withdraw from the government.

“I emphasize that even if we were in the opposition, we would not bring down the Prime Minister, but this cooperation is our only way to prevent the deal of surrender, to prevent this horrendous deal, and to ensure that the deaths of hundreds of soldiers were not in vain,” Ben-Gvir said.

Expressing his deep concerns, Ben-Gvir elaborated, “The emerging deal is terrible. I am well acquainted with the details: the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists from prisons, the return of Gazans to Gaza, among them thousands of terrorists to the northern part of the strip, the withdrawal of the IDF from the Netzarim Corridor, and the reinstating of the threat to the residents of the Gaza Envelope, effectively obliterating the achievements of the war that were obtained at the great cost of our soldiers’ blood, so far, in the Gaza Strip. Even more so, we will not be releasing all the hostages, and it seals the fate of the remaining hostages to death.”

Ben-Gvir also pushed back against any notion that this deal represents a difficult but necessary choice, stating, “This is not a ‘difficult choice’ that must be made in order to bring the hostages back home. It is a conscious choice at the cost of the lives of many other Israeli citizens who, unfortunately, will pay for this deal with their lives. We have already seen the outcomes of such deals in the past. We learned the hard way that there is no way to secure all the promises that ‘afterwards it will be okay.’”

Urging the Prime Minister to change course, Ben-Gvir said, “I call on the Prime Minister to wake up and ensure the defeat of Hamas and release of our hostages without compromising Israel’s security: to completely stop the transfer of humanitarian aid, fuel, electricity, and water to Gaza, while putting continued military pressure on Hamas until its absolute defeat.”

{Matzav.com Israel}