Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 16, 2021

Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir will not be a minister in the next government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, after helping the far-right party repeatedly.

Ben-Gvir is the leader of Otzma Yehudit, established by students of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from running for the Knesset in 1988 due to incitement to racism against Arabs.

Netanyahus statement came a day after he repeated his promise that Nael Zoabi, the first-ever Arab-Muslim candidate in Likud and his personal appointee to the 39th place on the list, would be Minister for Advancement of Arab Society, even if he does not make it into the Knesset.

Earlier Wednesday, Likud signed a surplus-vote sharing agreement with the Religious Zionist Party, which could help Netanyahus party gain seats in the March 23 election.

To get Smotrich to sign the deal, the Likud had to promise that the next government Netanyahu forms would take steps to maintain the land of Israel and strengthen the states Jewish identity. The Religious Zionist Party said the deal would help ensure that a center-left government would not be formed.

Last week, Netanyahu pushed far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich to form a bloc with Otzma Yehudit so that right-wing votes would not fall below the electoral threshold. Otzma had already merged with anti-LGBT party Noam.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

Netanyahu accused those who criticized his help for Otzma Yehudit of hypocrisy in the interview Wednesday.

Its interesting that all those who talk about this arent talking about how Lapids government will be with [Joint List MK] Heba Yazbak and the number-seven in Labor who said she doesnt stand for the siren on Yom HaShoah. Great. That is hypocrisy and no one buys it, he said.

Opposition party heads blasted Netanyahu for agreeing to the deal, singling out Ben-Gvirs support for Kahane.

They also recalled that Ben-Gvir had a picture of Hebron Massacre murderer Baruch Goldstein hanging in his house until recently.

Netanyahu signed a vote sharing agreement with the Baruch Goldstein and Ben-Gvir party, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid wrote on Twitter. He is trying to obtain immunity for bribery in return for supporting terror.

Blue and White wrote on Twitter that the late Likud leader and prime minister Menachem Begin would be ashamed of Netanyahu, while Kahane would be proud.

Labor leader Merav Michaeli wrote that the deal proved that the choice on Election Day is between continuing the path that led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and would lead to racism and immunity, or voting for Rabins path and his party.

The prime minister said that if Likud gets enough votes and we will we have a historic opportunity to establish a totally right-wing government, to have our dream governmentFor that, we need one big Likud.

The Likud leader also promised that the next government will not have a rotation agreement.

I think we all had enough from the rotation, Netanyahu said. We need one prime minister.

The outgoing government was formed with an agreement that Defense Minister Benny Gantz would be come prime minister in November, and parity between the Netanyahu-led bloc and the Gantz-led bloc. It lasted less than eight months before another election was called for March.

Surplus-vote sharing agreements, like the one Likud signed with the Religious Zionist Party, enable surplus votes for one party beyond what is needed for a mandate to move to another party and not be wasted. The method in calculating who gets the surplus votes is called the Bader-Ofer Law, after Gahal MK Yohanan Bader and Alignment MK Avraham Ofer the forerunners of the Likud and Labor, respectively who proposed it in 1973.

Yamina head Naftali Bennett and New Hope chairman Gideon Saar signed a surplus-vote sharing agreement between their two parties on January 4. Hours later, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman signed a similar deal. The four parties conspired to make sure the Likud would have no party to sign a deal with that will definitely cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.

Deals were also struck between Labor and Meretz, Shas and United Torah Judaism, and Blue and White with the New Economy Party of former Finance Ministry accountant-general Yaron Zelekha.

Such agreements tend to help the larger party at the expense of the smaller one, but there is a chance it could help Smotrichs party gain another seat. The agreement will come into play only if the Religious Zionist Party crosses the threshold.

See the article here:
Netanyahu: Kahanist wont be in my government - The Jerusalem Post

Category: Zionism
Tags: