Smotrich: The self-appointed rulers are against Netanyahu

The transportation minister slammed Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, saying he is not qualified to speak on behalf of the State of Israel.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Bezalel Smotrich (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Bezalel Smotrich
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday that “the State of Israel is all of us,” and ergo, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit is “unqualified to speak in its name.”
Smotrich slammed the decision by the attorney-general not to indict Arab-Israeli MK Heba Yazbak of supporting terrorism following her statements concerning actions taken against IDF soldiers.
“The self-appointed rulers are in favor of her,” Smotrich said. “The State of Israel is against her.”
Smotrich said that the indictments for alleged bribery and breach of trust against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Mandelblit ruled in favor of, are the opposite.
“The State of Israel is in favor of Benjamin Netanyahu,” he said. “The self-appointed rulers are against him.”
Among his supporters, there is a theory that Netanyahu is being unfairly treated by the media and the legal system, which are presented as the bastions of a so-called elite which espouses values and opinions which are not the same as those of the majority of the citizens.
Netanyahu himself often complains that the media coverage he gets, and that of his family members, is unfair and toxic. Claiming that he is the “only politician” to be indicted for “positive coverage,” claiming that to cultivate relations with reporters and editors to ensure good press is a common thing among politicians.
Netanyahu is not indicted for positive coverage, he is indicted for the alleged attempt to control the media market in Israel and dictate how the news are reported in one of the largest portals in the country.
Yazbak used social media to call terrorist Samir Kuntar a Shaheed (martyr). Kuntar was found guilty of the murder of two Israeli citizens and one police officer in 1979 and was killed in Syria in 2015 in an airstrike, which some say Israel was involved with.


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