Israeli Elections: What is the agenda of the Zionist Religious Party?

The entry into the Knesset of the ultra-nationalist Zionist Religious Party (RZP), which includes the more remote Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party and the anti-LGBT party Noam, did not cause much small left and liberal sides of the electoral divide.

The RZP won six seats and 225,000 votes in the election, giving it a small but significant representation, and a major discount if some form of just religious government was formed.

The party’s agenda is very clear and it published a detailed party manifesto outlining its policy objectives on a number of issues, including the reduction of High Court power, settlements, and religion and state affairs.

The party has been reluctant, however, as many of the other parties are ahead of the elections, to explain what ministerial records they would be seeking.

With the final election results in which the judicial bloc blocked 59 seats in the Knesset, two less than was required for a majority, leaders and RZP officials have been even more willing to take the plunge to discuss.

He said that for the first hundred days of government as part of it he would use the chair of the committee to help guide legislation through the Knesset to enforce a law enabling the Knesset to override the High Court if it goes down legislation.

The RZP in particular and much of Israel’s right wing have expanded more widely for several years against the Supreme Court’s intervention on the issue of settlement settlement on Palestinian private land, laws to detain African asylum seekers and migrants, and other cases where it believes that the court has no mandate to intervene,

Both Smotrich and Ben Gvir have often denied the Supreme Court for many of its decisions, most recently the ruling banning the government from banning citizens from returning to Israel and the decision recognizing the right of Reform and Conservative changes in Israel to obtain citizenship under the Law of Return.

Smotrich also said he would also use the committee to change the process by which judges are elected and to split the role of the attorney general into two halves: a chief legal adviser and a chief prosecutor.

The Jerusalem Post understands that Smotrich would like to be appointed minister of justice, although it would be difficult to get such a powerful ministry with just six seats.

Ben Gvir for his part has shown interest in the past in serving on the committee for Elected Judges, as part of his desire to change what he and his party see as left – wing discipline, liberal on the justice system.

However, when asked on Wednesday night in an interview with Channel 12 what position he would like if he should be part of a government, Ben Gvir said that he would like to be the minister for security in the Negev and Galilee, although such a ministry does not currently exist.

The Negev and Galile have large numbers of Arabs, and Ben Gvir and Otzmah Yehudit are very hostile to Israeli Arab citizens.

A clause in Otzmah Yehudit’s party manifesto states that the party will “work to take Israeli enemies out of our country,” while another clause talks about Otzmah’s promotion. “Arab emigration from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Otzma member Baruch Marzel, who was disqualified from running for the Knesset by the Supreme Court for racism, said in an interview in 2019 that he believed that “the majority” of Israeli Arab citizens are enemies, “but not all of them, I do not include 100 percent.”

In his interview on Channel 12, Ben Gvir stated that ” [in the Negev and Galilee] complaining, “and that” women are being harassed and called the police and that there is no police, it is appalling. “

The Noam party, which united with Otzma before the union dealt with Smotrich, is strongly focused on its agenda against the LGBT community and policies giving them more rights.

The party’s spiritual leader Rabbi Tzvi Tau, one of the most conservative leaders on the hard wing of the Zionist-religious movement, has called for a strong battle against equality policies for the LGBT community.

In comments released by Channel 12 on Wednesday night, Tau was heard saying that “these homosexuals, these sexual people, are poor people.”

He also said that LGBT activists have “entered the Ministry of Education into the younger classes where the children have no idea, and embrace postmodern values. – values, postmodern poison. “

It is not clear what kind of position Noam Avi Maoz’s representative would seek, although chairing the Knesset Education Committee would not be surprising given the strong concerns of Tau and others regarding sexual orientation education and the family unit .