Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett castigated Religious Zionist Party chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich Wednesday morning, in response to Smotrich’s call to bar coalition members from attending synagogue services.
"We stood, and are also standing today, at a crossroads, that says something simple," Bennett said at a conference on decentralizing authority to local councils.
"We formed a government because we knew that it was either this or fifth, sixth or seventh elections, or to form a government with people with views that are very, very different from ours. I am from the Right and there are people from the Left in the government; our views are completely different. But do you know what I discovered? Even people with very different views deeply love the State of Israel and this land."
"Like on my team in the IDF General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, there were people there from the left who love the land not even a centimeter or a millimeter less than I do. I do not have a monopoly on love for the land of Israel just like the other side does not have a monopoly on loving humanity or peace."
"It is very nice to say 'Everyone loves something – but we will not sit with them', 'everyone loves something but he will not enter my synagogue'. What is this? That a Jew should boycott another Jew in synagogue as a certain politician has called for? For this our previous state was destroyed 2,000 years ago."
"Therefore, I call on everyone: Let us unite against the external enemy. The enemy is not internal but external, the terrorists who are trying to break our spirit. They will not break our spirit. Nobody will break our spirit if we are stronger together. I would like to thank everybody and wish that we go back to being a great people that knows how to overcome divisions. With God's help, we will win."
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) also criticized Smotrich over his comments, tweeting: “As an irreligious woman, I nevertheless regularly attend the synagogue I went to as a girl with my father on holidays and other occasions.”
“I always felt welcome there – that every Jew has a place to come and to pray.”
“Bezalel apparently forgot what the rabbis said, that anyone who embarrasses his fellow in public is comparable to someone who has shed blood. He thinks that worshippers must expel me from the synagogue.”
On Tuesday, Smotrich suggested during an interview with Reshet Bet that coalition members not be allowed in synagogues.
“Anyone who colludes with this government doesn’t need to be allowed into a synagogue,” said Smotrich. “It is the most legitimate thing in the world: Anyone who lied, deceived, and defrauded [the public] and stole votes and sold out the country to the Islamic Movement and is now poised to do the same thing with terror-supporters in the Joint Arab List definitely isn’t deserving.”
Smotrich later said that he was referring specifically to Yamina MKs, whom he accused of ‘defrauding’ voters. He also denied that he had called for MKs to be barred from visiting synagogues, claiming instead that he meant that “they should feel unwelcome in public.”