Ehud Barak, who served in the past as Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Chief of Staff, on Saturday night attacked Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc in an interview with Channel 12 News.
Barak claimed that "Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, together with Netanyahu and this cult of 'power, money and honor', are a threat to Israeli democracy, to all of us."
He attacked Ben Gvir’s conduct during the current wave of terrorism, saying, "I don't think it's Ben Gvir’s business, with all due respect to such a mainstream figure that Netanyahu has built up in recent months. I look at some of the actions that look like an active attempt to incite a skirmish."
"In the end, God forbid they (Netanyahu's bloc), may lose the elections, and there may be an unpleasant conclusion. Since the only thing that can almost save them is not the agreement (with Lebanon), but a wave of terrorism or attacks, an attack of a mother and four children being murdered, God forbid, on the eve of the elections, that can guarantee them a victory. They are not only waiting for it to happen, but dying for it to happen," he charged.
Barak also claimed that Ben Gvir seeks to stir up a wave of terror to serve his goals. "He is riding the wave of rising tensions. After all, the responsibility is not only his, there is also another side. The Palestinians are far from perfect. Ben Gvir is a very problematic phenomenon."