Likening himself to Gandhi, Ehud Barak calls for civil revolt to topple Israeli government

The former prime minister compared his call to shut down the country to that of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak insisted Thursday in an interview on Army Radio that his recent call for mass civil disobedience to bring down the current government will not hurt the war effort.

“It doesn’t damage anything,” the former prime minister said. “Those who know history know that Mahatma Gandhi also called for nonviolent civil rebellion.”

“It’s what happened with Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” he added. “There’s no choice, this government is acting in a completely illegal way.”

Late last month, Barak spoke at an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv and blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exclusively for the Hamas invasion and massacre of 1,200 people that sparked the ongoing war against the terror organization.

“Perfect English is no substitute for a complete lack of courage, character and integrity,” he declared. “We want actions, not words. Today, Netanyahu has none of these things. It’s therefore essential and urgent to get rid of him. Netanyahu brought October 7th and the most failed war in our history upon us.”

He also told the thousands in the audience that the answer was to undertake “nonviolent civil noncompliance” in a “revolt” that “must be extended to a mass strike around the parliament together with opposition leaders until the government falls” once the Knesset reconvenes after the High Holidays.

Barak made a similar call in February, saying “We need 30,000 citizens circling the Knesset in tents for three weeks, day and night,” until Netanyahu “will realize his time is up.”

Human rights organization B’Tsalmo filed a police complaint of incitement against Barak following his speech. The police wrote back that it would investigate, and once done, the Department for Special Tasks in the State Attorney’s Office will decide whether to file charges or not.

MK Yitzhak Kreuzer, a member of the right-wing Otzma Yehudit faction in the Knesset, called for the authorities to take the investigation seriously.

“This is about the crossing of all red lines, and I and other citizens of Israel expect the prosecutor’s office not to leak the case” while truly looking into Barak’s motives, he said.

Calling Barak a dangerous, reckless “hot-necked national instigator,” who had “fostered and encouraged the phenomenon of refusal [to serve] in the IDF on the eve of the war” and tried to “disintegrate Israeli society,” Kreuzer said that his “words during war harm security and social resilience.”

Last year, during the mass protests against judicial reform, the authorities also investigated whether Barak’s extreme language against Netanyahu and the government’s efforts, which were supported by many in the country, went over the legal line.

Some ten days after the war began, a former Labor Party ally of Barak, Haim Ramon, blamed him for being the “father” of Israel’s policy of containment regarding Hamas, which he said ultimately led to the October 7 massacre.