The Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre shattered Israelis’ faith in peace with the Palestinians, Yesh Atid lawmaker Meir Cohen, who previously served as deputy Knesset speaker, told JNS in an interview at his parliamentary office in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
“When I was minister [of welfare and social services in the 33rd government], many of my friends from the ‘Gaza Envelope’ asked for permits to bring workers from Gaza into Israel to work in agriculture. They believed it would be good for both sides,” he said.
“After Oct. 7, they saw on camera those same workers burning houses, murdering people and destroying kibbutzim. That doesn’t mean we can’t fix it, but right now we need to focus on the healing of the Israeli people,” he continued.
Cohen told JNS that he considers himself right-wing on security issues, and emphasized that he supported going to war against Iran and its terrorist proxies, although he does not believe that all of the government’s objectives have been achieved.
“I come from Dimona and half my family is from Kiryat Shmona [in the Galilee Panhandle]. I feel their pain. We need to fight Hezbollah without blinking,” he said.
Born in Mogador, Morocco, in 1955, Cohen immigrated to Israel with his family in 1962.
“I remember walking the streets of Morocco. There was tolerance. When my father came home from the synagogue on Shabbat, the guests were Arabs,” he said.
Asked why Yesh Atid decided to join the Naftali Bennett-led Beyachad alliance, Cohen said he remembered feeling a sense of fulfillment serving under the former premier.
“As minister of labor and social affairs under Bennett, I spearheaded a national relief and subsistence program that helped 26,000 Ukrainian refugees. We opened an office with a budget of 40 million shekels. It did me good,” he said.
The second reason, he said, was that the faction believed it could not replace the current government with a left-wing leader.
“The sentiment among the Israeli people is center-right, and we understood the situation. We looked at the polls. It would have been a shame to waste that opportunity because of divisions,” he said.
Math, English, Hebrew and science
A member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Cohen stressed the importance of equality during wartime.
“What’s most important is protecting the country. When the IDF chief of staff comes and says he needs 14,000 more soldiers, otherwise Israelis will serve three-and-a-half years in mandatory service and reservists will serve 70 days a year, we have to listen to that reality,” the former paratrooper, who fought in the Yom Kippur War, said.
Before joining the Yair Lapid-led Yesh Atid, Cohen served as mayor of Dimona, as well as a teacher and school principal.
“In Dimona, we have one of the best education systems. It accepts everyone and is not elitist. The teachers are excellent. They don’t teach every student the same way. If the entire class excels, there is no challenge. But if the classroom is heterogeneous, you need to know how to give each child what he or she needs and push every student forward,” he said.
Cohen stressed the importance of ensuring that all Israeli children study core subjects (math, English, Hebrew and science), regardless of their background.
“There is no contradiction between learning Torah and core studies,” he said.
Cohen, who has led major social initiatives aimed at reducing inequality in Israeli society, said he loses sleep knowing there are not enough geriatric beds in the country.
“This is indicative of who we are. These are people who contributed to the country and served it, and they reach a stage in life when they need help,” he said.
He recalled the day an 80-year-old woman called him to say her husband needed an MRI appointment but could not get one through the public system for seven months.
“Every week, I find myself dealing with issues in Israeli society involving elderly people or young people living in the periphery,” he said.
In response, Cohen is developing a plan to issue more MRI licenses and deploy mobile MRI units to reach patients who cannot travel.
“When I was mayor of Dimona, that’s what we did. Instead of elderly residents traveling to the facilities, the mobile unit came to them. I even had a vehicle that traveled to Bedouin communities to examine disabled children who couldn’t make the journey,” he said.
Cohen also cited the cost of living and the shortage of social workers among the issues he continues to prioritize.
Although his primary focus is on social issues, Cohen has taken a strong interest in geopolitics and closely follows developments across the region.
“There are tectonic movements in the Middle East. The region is undergoing profound changes, and it will look different in the future—not exactly as we hoped, but different nevertheless,” he said.
