Knesset Member Betzalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) is unmoved by the campaign conducted by the "Secular Forum" over the last few days that claims IDF soldiers are forced to eat unhealthy and unvaried food only because military kitchens are being rendered kosher for Passover.
"Oh my, what a pity," replied Smotrich. "The IDF is a Jewish army and a Jewish army doesn't eat chametz (leavening) on Passover - even if it didn't have one religious soldier. How much more so since there are so many of them.
"According to surveys from previous years, between 70-80% of the Israeli public don't eat chametz on Pesach, so they released us from the antireligious coercion of a small, noisy, and extremist secular faction."
MK Smotrich called the Secular Forum an "anti-Semitic forum" and said what was interesting was not that it was "trying to fish for two-and-a-half disgruntled and unrepresentative soldiers in order to lie and tarnish Judaism," but, he says, that the media indulges in "recycled fake items".
"On second thought it's good - the greater the disconnect between the media and the public, the less the trust in the media and the less destructive it is," added the Jewish Home MK.