‘Sitting at a cafe while we bury our dead’: Netanyahu’s party faces public anger amid Israel-Hamas war

Experts predict Israeli PM's Likud party will face more public anger once people come out of mourning, and the crisis dealing a blow to Netanyahu’s political career.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu | Credit: X/Benjamin Netanyahu

New Delhi: While Israelis continue to criticise the horrific violence inflicted by Palestinian militant group Hamas, some public anger has also been directed towards the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, particularly members of the prime minister’s Likud party. 

Videos of Israelis shouting at two Likud ministers have gone viral on social media over the last two days, with many accusing them of corruption, populism and neglecting public interest. 

This comes at a time when Netanyahu has formed an emergency government with Opposition leader Benny Gantz, amid the country’s war with Hamas that has claimed the lives of over 1,200 Israelis and more than 1,100 Palestinians.

On Wednesday, videos emerged of Likud ministers Nir Barkat and Idit Silman, and Knesset (Israel’s parliament) member David Bitan, also from the ruling party, engaged in heated arguments with members of the public. Barkat and Silman were visiting hospitals when people demanded they resign and “ask for forgiveness” while Bitan was accused of relaxing at a coffee shop while ordinary Israelis fought at the frontlines.

Netanyahu leads a government backed by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and the far-right bloc, though his party holds a minority of seats in the coalition. Last November, he won an election despite having been previously indicted for corruption in three cases and losing power in 2021 to a coalition of opponents. 

Khinvraj Jangid, visiting faculty at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, predicts that the Likud party will face more public anger going forward.

“Israelis are still in shock, their dead are yet not buried. The Likud party will certainly face huge public anger once people come out of mourning…Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career does not seem like it will surpass this crisis,” he told ThePrint.

There has also been pushback from Likud strongholds like Sderot in southern Israel.

Yeshaya Rosenman, head of the South Asia Project at the Tel Aviv-based NGO Sharaka, was quoted by The Hindu as recalling a conversation with a 75-year-old woman in Sderot who survived attacks by Hamas militants.

“They have all let us down, the army, the government, all of them. They must pay for their incompetence. They have destroyed so many lives,” he recalled her saying.

Rosenman too felt public anger will play out when the war is over and when an investigation into the “failure of the military intelligence” and the Israeli leadership commences.

‘Corrupt, incompetent, useless’

Israel’s Economy Minister Nir Barkat, who visited Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, was accused of being more concerned with domestic politics than the country’s security. “There is a disaster here on the scale of the Holocaust. What you were interested in was how to appoint [Minister of Regional Cooperation David] Amsalem’s friend…,” Israeli news website Ynet quoted a citizen as saying.

Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman was accused of “hindering” the nation, while visiting Assaf Harofeh hospital in Be’er Ya’akov. A man in green scrubs, assumed to be a doctor, reportedly began shouting at the minister after which she fled from the scene.

Meanwhile, Knesset member Bitan was filmed sitting at a coffee shop amid the Israel-Hamas war. “Incredible. While we’re burying our dead, David Bitan sits down to eat at a Danish cafe! But not surprising. This is the government of Netanyahu. A collection of corrupt, incompetent and useless,” said Nava Rozolyo, Israeli attorney based in Tel Aviv.

לא יאמן.
בזמן שאנחנו קוברים את מתינו (אם בכלל יש גופה לקבור), דוד ביטן @davidbitan יושב לאכול בורקס בקפה דני! 😠

אבל לא מפתיע. זאת ממשלת @netanyahu. אוסף של מושחתים, חדלי אישים, חסרי כישורים וחסרי תועלת. הם שם רק כדי שהוא ישאר בשלטון.@gantzbe, לממשלה הזאת אתה נכנס במקום להפיל?! pic.twitter.com/SMEKBCZ9nz

— Nava Rozolyo🤸🏻‍♀️🤭🥑🌎 (@rozolyo) October 11, 2023

Several Israeli political commentators, while criticising the violence carried out by Hamas, have also called for the Netanyahu-led government to take accountability.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post Wednesday, Yuval Noah Harari, author and professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called Netanyahu a “populist strongman” and an “incompetent” prime minister.

“For many years, Israel has been governed by a populist strongman, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a public-relations genius but an incompetent prime minister,” wrote Harari. “He has repeatedly preferred his personal interests over the national interest and has built his career on dividing the nation against itself.”

Harari described the current coalition as “by far the worst”, and one that spent too much time trying to grab “unlimited power” instead of focussing on Israel’s security situation.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)