Racist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, sparked an uproar on Tuesday, May 5, when he asserted that former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s decision to include the Islamist Ra’am party in his 2021-2022 government was far worse than the “governmental tactical failures tied to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack”, the worst attack on civilians in Israeli history, which saw some 1,200 people murdered and 251 taken hostage, and which led to a multi-front war in which some 900 others Israelis have been killed.

“Stop the War,” MK Ayman Odeh during a demonstration in Haifa, March 21, 2026 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)

In addition, the criminal war, starvation and ethnic cleansing in Gaza caused 72,615 victims while 172,468 wounded since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. Also, the number of fatalities since the ceasefire on October 11, 2025, has risen to 834, and the total number of injuries to 2,365, while 768 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble.

Smotrich’s comments drew immediate condemnation from the opposition, with Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas asserting that “human life holds no value in his eyes”. MK Ayman Odeh, the chairman of Hadash-Ta’al parliamentary faction, also slammed Smotrich, declaring on X that “what the racists and Kahanists say is not important, what matters is what we will do.” “And we, the Arab citizens, together with the democratic Jews, will do everything, simply everything, to prevent Smotrich-Netanyahu-Ben Gvir from continuing to another term,” Odeh wrote.

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=33428