Miri Regev
Miri RegevAvshalom Sassoni/Flash 90

Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who is in charge of the annual torchlighting ceremony which takes place on Independence Day, is expected to call opposition leader Yair Lapid at the conclusion of Shabbat and ask him to participate in the ceremony, after he announced that he would not attend, Channel 12 News reported on Friday.

According to the report, Regev will convey to Lapid in the conversation a message of unity as Israel prepares to observe Memorial Day followed by Independence Day.

The leader of the opposition is not expected to agree to Regev's request as he believes that the ceremony is nothing short of a "government propaganda broadcast", the report added.

Lapid’s main issue with the ceremony is Prime Minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu's recorded speech, which is expected to be broadcast during the ceremony.However, no final decision has yet been made as to whether the speech will indeed be broadcast.

Lapid earlier this week published a lengthy Facebook post in which he announced his decision not to partake in the torchlighting ceremony.

"With a heavy heart, I have decided not to go to the torchlighting ceremony this year. Avigdor Kahalani deserves more than a country that is a split screen, David Blatt too. We all deserve a country that has love in it on its birthday and which will prevail. But if that were the case, they would have spared us Netanyahu's recorded speech, and the torchlighter who is a member of the Likud Central Committee, and Regev's taunting message that 'this is a ceremony of the government, not of the Knesset.' If they want the torchlighting ceremony to be a ceremony of everyone, they should not turn it into a political show."

He also added, “Last year - when we led the government - Netanyahu did not come to the ceremony. I don't want to hate anyone, I just won't participate in government propaganda broadcasts. I signed onto the call not to include Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day in the protest [against the judicial reform]. I will be at the military cemetery as always. Bereavement is the place where the internal debate must not be allowed to enter. In the 75th year of the State of Israel, we will be sad together, but we will be happy separately."

(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)