https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-governments-assassination-of-israels-character-opinion-682760
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid outdid himself on Monday evening. Yes, the “alternate” premier slated to replace Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the helm in September 2023, took the opportunity of a special parliamentary session commemorating the 26th anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to insult the national camp.
“There is a [direct] line between Rabin’s murder and the past year,” he said. “Both are part of Israel’s great struggle, not between Right and Left, but between those who believe in democracy and those who are trying to destroy it.”
Rabin, he continued, “wasn’t murdered by the Right – the true right wing is democratic – but by anyone who isn’t willing to accept Israeli democracy. Anyone who tells himself that the majority doesn’t rule isn’t really in the national camp; he’s a dangerous, nationalist extremist. Instead of loving the country, he hates anyone who doesn’t think the way he does.”
He went on to claim that the “ideological heirs” of Yigal Amir – Rabin’s assassin, who is justifiably in prison for life – “are sitting in the Knesset today, and if not for the miracle of the change government, they’d be sitting in the government.”
“Do you mean the Joint [Arab] List?” heckled Religious Zionist Party leader MK Bezalel Smotrich, referring to the members of Knesset who openly oppose the Jewish state.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” added Smotrich, who knew full well that Lapid had been pointing a finger at him and his political allies. When he and a few other MKs from Shas and Likud exited the premises, Lapid resumed his inexcusable tirade.
“The coalition that we formed isn’t left-wing or right-wing,” he announced. “It’s a coalition of the majority of Israel’s citizens who decided to rescue Israeli democracy.”