Almost two weeks into the war with Iran, Israel’s bitter political divides are resurfacing after a wave of early unity.
Many in the opposition are berating the government over budget cuts and accusations of chaotic wartime planning.
Polling shows that the vast majority of Jewish Israelis still back the conflict, which is widely viewed as necessary to confront the existential threat from Iran.
However, the X accounts of opposition politicians highlight an emerging gap between their bellicose statements about a just war, often posted in English, and Hebrew-language statements showing mounting anger at how the government is behaving.
One post at the top of opposition leader Yair Lapid’s page showed a clip of him telling an Indian broadcaster: “If you want to know why we are fighting this war here in the Israeli north, it is because if there is a siren right now, you would have to run immediately.”
He concluded: “What we are doing is fighting a just war to ensure that all Israelis are safe and not harmed by terror organisations or terror regimes.”
The next post, in Hebrew, showed a clip of him criticising Mr Netanyahu. “The war cannot end with the prime minister once again promising us that he has 'eliminated forever and ever all the threats', as he promised us last June and it didn't happen, or that there will be an 'absolute victory' as was promised to us in Gaza and it didn't happen,” Mr Lapid said
“It cannot be that Israeli citizens will discover that this was just another round, after all.”
Spending cuts
There has been particular fury at spending cuts initiated by Mr Netanyahu and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Plans to boost the defence budget by more than $10 billion call for a three per cent cut in domestic spending.
Announcing the cuts, Mr Smotrich said: “We wanted this budget to bring more good news to Israeli citizens, especially in the fight against the cost of living, but the responsibility on our shoulders requires us to focus on passing the budget immediately for the sake of the country's security.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, seen as a major player in upcoming elections, criticised aspects of the cuts.
“Last night, while we were in the shelters, the government slashed budgets for northern rehabilitation, protection, education, health care and aid for the elderly,” he wrote. The cuts could trim tens of millions of dollars from a plan to rebuild Israel’s north, which was heavily affected by war with Hezbollah.
Mr Bennett also objected to more than $1.5 billion being allocated in concessions to Mr Netanyahu's coalition partners, such as ultra-Orthodox institutions, which he described as “encouraging non-enlistment” and “schools that don't teach maths and English”.
Mr Netanyahu’s far-right coalition includes an ultra-Orthodox bloc, whose support is conditional on funding an education system that many Israelis say keeps the community dangerously isolated. Many of these institutions and their leaders also compel young men to ignore draft orders from the country’s military, one of the most controversial political questions in Israel in recent years.
Yair Golan, leader of left-wing party The Democrats, criticised part of the funding going to settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as “draft dodging” and “corruption”.
The government has also been increasingly accused of incompetence in handling the closure of schools, mandated by the military’s home front command. Education Minister Yoav Kisch announced that a plan to partially reopen educational facilities next week will not include ones in Tel Aviv and northern Israel. But he faced mounting criticism this week over what is viewed as a contradictory plan that does not take into account the burden on parents, who are expected to work despite their children being at home.
On Tuesday, Mr Lapid criticised Mr Kisch and Mr Smotrich for not co-ordinating as the Finance Ministry pushed to “reopen the economy too early”.
There is also mounting concern over the direction of the war and how the government is communicating its strategy. Mr Golan slammed comments made by Defence Minister Israel Katz, who was quoted by Israeli outlet Ynet as saying that the war with Iran had “no time limit”.
“A war doesn't need a time limit; it needs an exit strategy and a defence minister who's not a clown,” Mr Golan said on Wednesday.
“But this government has excelled for two and a half years in only one thing: opening fronts, and getting stuck in them. Meanwhile, Israeli citizens live between an alarm and a shelter.”
Israel’s military also admitted mistakenly not giving the public enough warning before Wednesday evening’s wave of Hezbollah and Iranian strikes, despite details of the barrage being leaked hours earlier on international and social media.
