An alliance of far-flung groups, including racist and homophobic open candidates, appears to be entering the Israeli parliament, possibly an essential member of the Prime Minister’s right-wing coalition Benjamin Netanyahu, according to opinion polls Tuesday.
The Zionist Religious Party introduces a new incarnation of the Kahanist movement, a Jewish terrorist group banned as terrorists by Israel, the United States and other Western countries decades ago because they incited violence against Arabs .
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Far Right Zionist Religious Party leaders Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir will celebrate election results Tuesday
(Photo: sagi yair)
Censuses are out with three major Israeli television channels that expect the Zionist Religious Party to get six to seven seats, the best show ever by a true party. With Netanyahu and his opponents locked up after four elections in two years, it looks like he will have to muster the group if he succeeds in gathering a narrow majority in Knesset, a 120-member, Israeli parliament.
His rise reflects another shift to the right in Israel, where parties that support Jewish settlements and oppose the creation of a Palestinian state are already gaining control of the country. political view. A tough right-wing government is likely to find itself on a collision course with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who has stressed the revival of peace efforts.
The Zionist Religious Party is led by Bezalel Smotrich, a longtime activist and former transport minister who has filed anti-gay protests and recently compared gay marriage and incest. In 2016, he tweeted in support of the segregation of Jewish and Arab women in maternity wards.
“It is natural that my wife would not want to lie next to someone born just a child whose child could be murdered in another 20 years,” he wrote.
He has also expressed hostility to more liberal layers of Judaism and said that Israel should be governed by religious law.
He is joined by Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the far-flung Jewish Power party. He is a disciple of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who incited violence against Arabs, who called for Israel to be governed by Jewish religious law and who demanded that Arabs and others not were the individuals of Israel and the occupied territories. Joining them is the openly homophobic Noam group.
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Itamar Ben-Gvir calls together list candidate Ata Abu Madighem a terrorist after the Supreme Court blocked his 2019 parliamentary election bid
(Photo: AFP)
As a teenager in the 1990s, Ben Gvir became active in the Kach movement founded by Kahane, who was murdered by an Egyptian-American in New York in 1990.
In a 1995 TV interview, Ben Gvir boasted that Cadillac was then stripped off by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, saying “We’ll get Rabin too.” Weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish terrorist against his peace efforts with the Palestinians. Ben Gvir later became a lawyer representing Jewish finishers suspected of invading Palestinians.
Until recently, he had a picture hanging in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane disciple who laid down 29 Palestinians while praying in a mosque on the West Bank in 1994. Ben Gvir has been say he wants to eliminate the Arabs who are hostile to the state.
Prior to the election Ben Gvir was trying to distance himself from Kahane’s most isolated views. In an interview with Channel 13 after the polls left, he said Kahane had “done a lot of good things,” saying: “I don’t agree with everything Kahane said.”
The National Religious Party strongly supports Jewish cities and joins the West Bank, which captured Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want the West Bank to be a key part of the state their future and see the settlements as an obstacle to peace, a situation with widespread international support.
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Itamar Ben Gvir in 2010 held by police after shouting slogan at White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel during his visit to Jerusalem
(Photo: AP)
Netanyahu pushed the three farthest groups to unite to ensure they passed the minimum election level. They fell short in last year’s election, meaning votes that could have helped Netanyahu go out. He will now need them if he hopes to remain in office and pursue immunity from prosecution on a number of corruption charges.
His presence in a narrow coalition government may have raised warnings across Israel’s political spectrum, with critics arguing that Netanyahu sees his radical agenda for political survival.
“The Kahanists want to enter the government not just for the luxury seats of the ministers, the salary and the car, support army and funding for the supporters. They have an agenda, ”wrote Nahum Barnea, a former columnist for Yediot Aharonot newspaper, before the election.
“First, it means freedom for Jewish terrorists to work in the lands. Second, it means destroying the justice system. Third, it means apartheid within Israel; racial segregation at hospitals, universities, the civil service and the (military). Fourth, it means sex discrimination. Fifth, it means the implementation of national-Haredi (ultra-orthodox) religious codes. They’re not playing around. “