Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the northern border on Wednesday with the Likud’s Kiryat Shmona mayoral candidate Avi Zafrani instead of its current mayor, Avichai Stern, who has criticized the government’s handling of the conflict with Hezbollah on the northern border.
The tour came after fires caused by Hezbollah rockets and drones raged in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights this week.
A number of politicians, including Interior Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) and Minister-without-Portfolio MK Benny Gantz (National Unity) criticized the prime minister. Gantz said “the reality for the residents of Kiryat Shmona is difficult, and leadership cannot run from reality.” Gantz called on Netanyahu to apologize to Stern.
Members of the opposition, including Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman, United Right chairman MK Gideon Sa’ar, and newly elected Labor Party chairman Yair Golan also criticized Netanyahu.
The Prime Minister’s Office said soon after Gantz’s statement that the tour was “military,” and that no civil officials were invited. A spokesperson for the office did not answer a query as to how Zafrani ended up joining the tour.
According to a spokesperson for Zafrani, the mayoral candidate was in Kiryat Shmona and was asked by a municipal security officer if he was planning to join the tour, after which he joined it spontaneously. Zafrani also criticized Stern for “not being present in the city” and for “abandoning the residents.”
Stern responded to the incident in a statement, “The residents of Kiryat Shmona do not have the time, patience, or money for acts of cheap politics during wartime,” Stern said.
Stern lashes out
“If the prime minister really wanted to lead change in Kiryat Shmona he needed to have the mayor by his side... he would have had to meet with those who run the city every day, who care for the thousands of residents of Kiryat Shmona who were evacuated to over 460 towns throughout the country. But unfortunately, for this government – everything is for show. Fake concern, fake security, and fake action... the North burns, and the prime minister plays petty politics,” Stern said.
While most of Israel’s cities held mayoral elections in February, the election in Kiryat Shmona and 13 other municipalities on the northern and Gaza borders was postponed to November due to the security situation.