Retired Major General Against Netanyahu: "I Will Never Forgive Him. The Government Has Betrayed the Values of Jewish Tradition"

Against the backdrop of high tension surrounding the possibility of renewed intense fighting in Iran, protests against the government are taking place this evening in Tel Aviv and Haifa. At Habima Square in Tel Aviv, about 1,000 people arrived to demonstrate, calling for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 massacre, and in Haifa, several hundred people are protesting, calling for the government to be replaced in the upcoming elections.

In Tel Aviv, former Southern Command chief, Major General (res.) Yom Tov Samia, addressed the Knesset members from Likud, Shas, and Religious Zionism:

"I grew up in a religious home, in the best tradition of Libyan Jewry. I established a mixed family that includes Libyans, Romanians, Poles, Kurds, Moroccans, French — a Jewish, Israeli, and democratic family. I established a national synagogue. I keep our traditions, and in my childhood home, we grew up on the values of Likud and the National Religious Party (Mafdal). But today? Today there is no Likud and no Mafdal. The Likud we knew left us long ago."

"The current coalition, which prides itself on the title 'Right', has betrayed our values," Samia attacked. "I ask you to look at reality squarely, without the pink filters of propaganda channels and talking points. October 7 is a wound that will not heal. This is not a failure of the IDF and the Shin Bet alone. This is the responsibility of a leadership that dictated a strategy. Call it what you want, but 1,200 murdered and 254 hostages — 49 of whom were abandoned to be murdered in captivity — are a fact that no whitewashed name can erase."

Samia further said: "I will never forgive Netanyahu. The rifts and tears he has brought to this country are the real threat to the state's existence." He addressed the government members: "You call yourselves Right? The Right does not subsidize draft dodging with billions at the expense of the fighters. The Right does not weaken the IDF to grease anti-Zionist institutions. The Right does not abandon the economy of families collapsing under the cost of living."

Samia appealed to right-wing voters: "Likud voters, Shas voters, my friends in tradition. This government needs a correction, and the correction will come from you. You are the ones who need to stop voting for a government of malice that has forgotten what it means to be Jewish and Zionist."

Shir Mathias, whose parents Shahar and Shlomi were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Holit on October 7, also spoke in Tel Aviv: "We are in a reality where the government demands all the power without taking any responsibility, while a huge part of the public bears the full burden and another part is exempt from it. A society that lacks equality in the burden is a society that violates the most basic contract between citizens and the state."

In Haifa, Hadas Klein stated: "I am an Israeli patriot, and I am worried, because if this lawlessness does not stop, there is a real fear for the existence of the State of Israel. Not just a fear for the character of the state, not just a fear for the state's values, not just a fear for democracy, but an existential fear, because if this possibility continues, and Israel continues to deteriorate in all areas — education, social resilience, economy, and technology — it will lose its ability to provide security to its citizens."