Brig. Gen. (res.) Dedi Simchi, who formerly served as the head of the Fire and Rescue Service, announced that he is entering politics and will take part in the upcoming election campaign.
Speaking at a "Shabbatarbut" cultural event at Beit Yad Labanim in Rehovot with journalist Liat Regev, Simchi said: "The country needs to be put in order, and I am someone with proven experience who knows how to get things in order." At the same time, he clarified that he will not run in Likud primaries.
"I think new faces need to enter the political arena," he said. "There are a few problems here, the first of which is that for the past 20 years it’s been the same people, and if it’s the same people, we’ll probably get the same results."
"Unfortunately, in Israel today politics is automatically associated with quarrels, corruption, lack of professionalism, and so on, and therefore good people don’t want to get into it. We need to fix that. We need to fix the political culture so that the young people now fighting in Gaza and Lebanon can be given 10 years to refresh themselves and to build families, and then they will enter politics."
"The extremists are driving us crazy from both sides," he said. "On one side, those who prevent gender-separated prayer in Dizengoff Square on Yom Kippur, and on the other, those who try to bring a goat to the Temple Mount every Passover. I don’t want those people."
Simchi became a prominent public figure after the October 7 massacre. His son, Guy Simchi, a fighter in the Paratroopers Reconnaissance Unit, and was killed in the heroic battle at Kibbutz Re’im. Simchi himself recovered his son’s body from the area.