Yair Netanyahu likes online post accusing IDF chief of Oct 7 ‘military coup’.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair liked a social media post on Wednesday that accused IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi initiating a de facto military coup, claiming the military chief knew ahead of time of the devastating October 7 assault by Hamas, and did not tell the premier.
“On October 7 we were in the midst of a military coup led by Herzi Halevi, who didn’t inform the prime minister about the attack that was about to take place on the morning of Simchat Torah,” the post charged.
“The coup is neither over nor completed. The military chief and defense minister are preventing the internal security minister from entering a military base. Truly a coup,” the poster wrote.
The post, written by an unknown social media user, was referring to a claim by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had canceled his visit to a base. The IDF and the Defense Minister’s office said the visit was postponed due to time constraints, and Ben Gvir was asked to arrange it for another date, the Ynet news site reported.
Yair Netanyahu’s approval of the social media post was first reported by Channel 12 news.
In November, the prime minister’s son shared posts on his Telegram account that cast blame on the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet and the High Court for the staggering failures leading to the October 7 attack, in which 3,000 Hamas terrorists breached the border from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping another 240, mostly civilians.
Yair Netanyahu, who moved to Miami earlier this year and stayed there until late last month, despite the war in Israel, shared a clip on “how the High Court changed the security arrangements and the instructions for opening fire on the border of the Gaza Strip.”
The clip featured a video of an attorney from the Kohelet Policy Forum, the conservative think tank whose ideas formed the ideological basis of the government’s contentious judicial overhaul program that roiled the country earlier this year.
He also shared a screen grab of an unsourced news item from the Kan public broadcaster on October 2 that stated: “The message sent by the Shin Bet and the IDF to the political echelon: In order to preserve peace in the Gaza Strip — economic operations for Gaza must continue.”
Polls published in the weeks after October 7 show that the vast majority of Israelis believe the prime minister should publicly accept responsibility for the failures that led to Hamas’s devastating onslaught.
Halevi, along with Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have already taken responsibility.
The prime minister’s son reportedly moved to Florida after Netanyahu and his wife demanded that he stop posting on social media and not speak directly with lawmakers or ministers amid accusations he was inflaming tensions in Israel and exacerbating a diplomatic rift with the United States.
He has faced legal action over his online posting, and has been accused of deploying antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Yair Netanyahu also faced criticism for remaining in the US despite the outbreak of war, as tens of thousands of Israelis returned home to join the over 300,000 reservists initially called up.
