Coalition MKs slam Lapid’s call for anti-gov’t strike, ‘tax revolt’

During the same rally on Saturday, Yair Golan, chairman of the opposition’s The Democrats party, went one step further by appearing to call for a coup.

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, Amelie Botbol, JNS

Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition on Sunday slammed opposition leader Yair Lapid’s call to shut down the economy during wartime if the government defies a High Court injunction against a Cabinet decision to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

“Yair Lapid should be ashamed. In my opinion, his deterioration in the polls is bringing him to a political behavior that is endangering the State of Israel,” Likud Party lawmaker Tally Gotliv told JNS on Sunday.

The threat from Lapid, who chairs the Yesh Atid Party, of a tax revolt undermines the Jewish state’s resilience during wartime while failing to “take into account the consequences for the country,” said Gotliv.

“Lapid is the lowest kind of politician there is in that he is concerned with his political survival in a way that betrays all of his values,” she added.

Speaking at an anti-government rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Lapid said that if Netanyahu’s coalition “decides not to obey the court’s ruling, it will turn itself that day, that moment, into a criminal government.

“The economy needs to strike, the Knesset needs to strike, courts need to strike, local authorities need to strike, not only the universities need to strike, but also the schools,” urged Lapid, who added, “If we can organize a tax revolt, we will organize a tax revolt.”

The remarks came after some ministers vowed to defy the court’s temporary injunction preventing Bar’s dismissal despite the Cabinet’s unanimous decision on Thursday to fire him.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insisted, “Supreme Court judges will not run the war or decide its commanders. Period.”

The court on Sunday scheduled a hearing to hear petitions against the sacking on April 8.

During the same rally on Saturday, Yair Golan, chairman of the opposition The Democrats party, went one step further by appearing to call for a coup.

“A government in Israel that refuses to obey the High Court of Justice’s ruling is illegal and dangerous,” Golan said. “A government that refuses to obey the law is a dangerous government that must be stopped. It must be overthrown!”

Likud Party MK Moshe Passal told JNS on Sunday he was “very concerned about the violent discourse and slogans such as ‘Bibi [Netanyahu] must die,’ ‘Bibi is a traitor’ and ‘Government of blood,’ and assertions that there will soon be a dictatorship [or] civil war.”

“In a democracy, people are allowed to demonstrate. This is the essence of democracy. I am glad that Yair Lapid expressed a reservation and said it is forbidden to refuse to serve in the IDF, and that he understands that what was done before Oct. 7 was wrong,” Passal continued, in reference to past refusals to serve in the IDF in protest of Netanyahu’s judicial reform program.

The Likud lawmaker concluded, “We must remember that in the end, debates and decisions in democracies are decided at the ballot box, not by violence. Everyone should remember this.”

Religious Zionism Party MK Simcha Rothman told JNS on Sunday that “those people who talk and shout about democracy have no clue what it is. In a democracy, the head of the Shin Bet has to be under the control of elected officials,” he said.

“The people who say that Oct. 7 was the biggest disaster stand behind the head of the Shin Bet, under whose watch this happened. It shows they don’t care about responsibility or any other issue, they only care about their political agenda,” he added.

Netanyahu said on Friday that he has the authority to dismiss Bar, while insisting that the heated debate over the issue will not deteriorate into civil war.

“There will be no war between brothers! The State of Israel is a state of law, and according to the law, the government of Israel decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet,” the premier wrote on X.