Einav Zangauker, who emerged as one of the Israeli hostages’ movement’s most prominent activists in the struggle for the release of her now-freed son Matan Zangauker, announced on Friday that she would enter politics and was not ruling out running in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“The country can only be fixed by us, the citizens,” Zangauker told television host Ofira Asayag on her Channel 12 program, citing a need for a complete systemic overhaul.
“The state bodies and the government are non-functional,” she said. “On October 7, no one was there for the citizens, those who had to evacuate their homes, those who had to bury their loved ones. Everything’s terrible.”
The activist severely criticized the prime minister, continuing a stance she has held for the past two years as a onetime staunch supporter of Netanyahu.
“I scare him: I’m the one who voted for him from the moment I had the right to vote, I believed him – Mr. Security, Mr. Economy,” she referred to Netanyahu’s nicknames. “At the end of the day, he’s the one who caused my son to remain captive for two years, to undergo physical and mental abuse,” she said. “He’s the one who considered political considerations first and foremost, instead of ending the war and giving me my child back.”
“Hostages who could have been home alive long ago and released in previous deals were also killed, but that’s only the prime minister’s fault,” she added, noting that she believed he was still encouraging his supporters to attack her. “Why else did he throw my name out this week at a cabinet meeting as someone who would supposedly be part of the cover-up inquiry instead of a state commission of inquiry?”
She also said politicians, including the Likud, had invited her to join their parties.
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The Likud responded to Channel 12’s Mako news outlet that “the prime minister or his representatives did not contact, and do not intend on contacting Einav Zangauker to invite her to the Likud. We wish her luck and health, to her and her son.”
Matan Zangauker was released as part of a U.S.-brokered hostage release deal with Hamas in October. Before and after his release, Netanyahu’s supporters have voiced criticism of Einav Zangauker.