But readers who clicked through to the Arutz Sheva site noticed immediately that the piece was not editorial coverage at all. it was labeled as marketing content, meaning it had been commissioned and paid for by the Religious Zionism party itself. In other words, Smotrich paid cash for an article praising him, then rushed to social media to thank the public for his supposed momentum.
Commenters on X did not hold back.
"There's no way you're serious. This is a paid and misleading article. There's no way a liberal religious-Zionist voter would back a messianic extremist who supports chareidi draft evasion and throws massive budgets at them, who backs those who don't study core subjects, who effectively gives cover to Jewish terror in Yehudah and Shomron, who's allied with Feiglin who's even more extreme than you. I'm hoping you don't pass the threshold," one user wrote.
Another commenter was blunter: "Are you an idiot? You think we don't understand this is a propaganda piece? It says so explicitly. What a pathetic bunch."
And some used language considerably less polite: "You bought an article with cash and you're lying to the public again, you arrogant [expletive]. Soon we'll throw you out, you zero, father of all draft dodgers."
