(01.05.2024)
Haaretz reported that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is a member of the security cabinet, called for the “total annihilation” of Rafah and other areas of Gaza.
He said on Monday: “There are no half measures. [The Gazan cities of] Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. ‘You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
Thousands protested in Tel Aviv on Monday night, April 29, in a rally that later descended into clashes with police forces, arrests, and police violence toward protesters and relatives of hostages. The rally reached the King George Street near of the ruling Likud party’s headquarters, where police used a water cannon and mounted cops to disperse the protest.
Cops shoved Ilana Gritzewsky, Matan Zangauker’s partner who was kidnapped on October 7 and released in the November deal. Early protesters blocked the army headquarters entrance at Begin Street and Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan, addressed Netanyahu, saying he had to choose between bringing the hostages home and keeping intact his government over the objections of racist ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who vehemently oppose a hostage deal that would require a ceasefire. Einav Zangauker told Ynet that cops had pushed her to the ground at the Likud headquarters and that the police used excessive force and sent in disproportionate forces to disperse the crowd, in what she called “stepped-up violence.”
(29.01.2024)
Speaking amid a carnival-like atmosphere at the Jerusalem International Convention Center, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, extolled the virtues of creating new settlements, declaring: “God willing, we will settle and we will be victorious.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was not present, and the audience that it was “time to return home to Gush Katif” — the name of the Israeli settlement bloc in Gaza that was evacuated in the 2005 Disengagement.
Israel‘s War Cabinet gathered overnight on Friday to discuss the future of the Gaza Strip after the nation‘s war against Hamas ends. The meeting was reportedly cut off after lawmakers clashed with the defense establishment over the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) investigation of the mistakes leading to the October 7 tragedy that had previously been promised to start after the Israel-Hamas war.
Miri Regev, Minister of Transport and Road Safety, pointed out that the decision over the probe had been made without lawmakers‘ knowledge and argued that the army should be fully focused on the combat in the moment.
“The United States remains firmly opposed to any forced or enduring displacement of Palestinians from Gaza,” a State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera in an email on Monday evening, without commenting specifically on the Israeli ministers’ most recent remarks.
Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2018, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
When cabinet ministers, under the leadership and guidance of the prime minister and justice minister, two human demons who have taken over the state, insult and denounce the High Court of Justice merely for hearing petitions (which it could end up rejecting), Israel can no longer be seen as a democratic, liberal state. Nor is it Jewish, because what Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir and Eliyahu and Strock represent is not Judaism. It is messianism, racism and degradation.
Speaking to a crowd of pro-judicial overhaul demonstrators in Tel Aviv, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: „Those against the reform, I understand how you‘re feeling, this is how we felt during Oslo,“ referencing how right-wing Israelis felt during the Oslo peace process led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the 90s.
(Jan 19, 201)
The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here, the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people. The interviews Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht held with Smotrich and Zohar (December 3, 2016 and October 28, 2017) should be widely disseminated on all media outlets in Israel and throughout the Jewish world. In both of them we see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.
Like every ideology, the Nazi race theory developed over the years.
Protesters descended on the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, DC, where Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was giving a speech to an Israel Bonds convention on Sunday.
What to watch: Smotrich is expected to visit the U.S. the second week of March for a meeting of the Israel Bonds organization.
Israeli officials said he hasn‘t asked for any meetings with the Biden administration.
Two U.S. officials told Axios that even if he asked for meetings with Biden officials, he likely wouldn‘t get them.
Price issued a strong condemnation from the US State Department podium Wednesday, saying, “I want to be very clear about this. These comments were irresponsible. They were repugnant. They were disgusting.”
“And just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative remarks that also amount to incitement to violence,” he said at a State Department briefing.
Price also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and other senior Israeli officials to publicly and clearly reject and disavow these comments.”
Israel’s Finance Minister called for the destruction of a West Bank Palestinian village on Wednesday, days after it was attacked by a mob of settlers who torched dozens of homes and reportedly killed one resident.
“The village of Hawara needs to be wiped out. I think that the State of Israel needs to do that [and] not, God forbid, private individuals,” said Bezalel Smotrich, when asked why he had “liked” a tweet by deputy Samaria Regional Council head Davidi Ben Zion calling for Hawara to be “wiped out today.”
Verhandelt wird nun, ob die Knesset künftig die Möglichkeit erhält, sich über solche Entscheidungen in einer erneuten Abstimmung hinwegsetzen zu können. Dann könnte das Parlament Gesetze beschließen, die den grundlegenden Gesetzen Israels widersprechen.
Parteichef Besalel Smotrich nannte die Vereinbarung einen „historischen Schritt“ in Richtung einer Regierung, die das „Siedlungsvorhaben regeln und entwickeln“ werde. Netanjahu sprach von einer „rechtsnationalen Regierung, die sich um alle Israelis kümmern“ werde.
The echoes of the explosions of the coordinated attacks in Jerusalem were still ringing, and the area had not yet been cleaned of the blood and broken glass. Politicians, seeing the promised land of power before their eyes, pounced on the opportunity they were given. Otzma Yehudit urged Likud members to stop with this “nonsense” of negotiating over forming a coalition (meaning: yield to all their demands). Religious Zionism repeated their demand that Benjamin Netanyahu convene the heads of all the relevant parties in a closed room and wrap things up. Needless to say, for the sake of security.
In recent years, Israel has become terrifyingly more extreme. Everything we were warned about is happening right before our eyes.
In der Zeitung „Jediot Ahronot“ schrieb die Kolumnistin Sima Kadmon vor der Wahl: „Falls Netanyahu triumphiert, werden dies die letzten Tage des Staates Israel sein, wie wir ihn seit 75 Jahren kennen.“ Seine Kritiker sehen im Ex-Regierungschef eine Gefahr für die Demokratie. Würde er wieder Ministerpräsident werden, könnte das seine Chancen erheblich verbessern, eine Verurteilung oder eine Haftstrafe in den Korruptionsprozessen gegen ihn abzuwenden.
Israel hat gewählt – zum fünften Mal binnen dreieinhalb Jahren. Erste Prognosen sehen das Bündnis von Oppositionsführer und Ex-Premierminister Netanyahu knapp vorn. Er will eine nationalkonservative Koalition schmieden.
According to Kan 11 public television, the exit polls show:
– Likud: 30 seats
– Yesh Atid: 22 seats
– Religious Zionism: 15 seats
– National Unity Party: 13 seats
– Shas: 10 seats
– United Torah Judaism: 7 seats
– Labor: 5 seats
– Yisrael Beitenu: 5 seats
– The United Arab List: 5 seats
– Meretz: 4 seats
– Hadash-Ta‘al: 4 seats
– Habayit Hayehudi: Under electoral threshold
– Balad: Under electoral threshold
We shouldn’t downplay the threat posed by a return to power by Netanyahu, a criminal defendant who caused great damage to the fabric of Israeli life, undermined its democratic institutions, eroded its values and is willing to cooperate with Kahanists to regain power. But this threat should not obscure the substance of Rinawie Zoabi’s arguments, which deserve serious attention. Not every abomination can be koshered by citing Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotric
(18.10.2021)
Speaking earlier at the official ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem commemorating the 26th anniversary of the assassination, Bennett said at the official ceremony in Jerusalem‘s Mount Herzl that an entire Israeli generation is suffering from PTSD, whose lives were shaken and molded by the assassination in 1995.
Thousands of people took part in the controversial right-wing Flag March in Jerusalem on Tuesday, with police clashing with hundreds of Palestinian protesters near the Old City‘s Damascus Gate as tensions with Gaza run high after last month‘s fighting.
Mounted police and skunk water were used to disperse them, while at Herod’s Gate, police fired sponge-tipped bullets at protesters. Police arrested 17 Palestinian protesters.
The shameful scene also revealed that indeed, it was high time for the outgoing members of the government to head to the opposition. As Lapid said, their behavior reminded him why it was so important to replace them. Their concept of democracy and free speech has been distorted beyond recognition by too much time in power.
Pressed on how the U.S. can take an „evenhanded“ approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when the Hamas terrorist group does not recognize Israel‘s right to exist, Sanders slammed the Netanyahu government, saying it is not innocent in the hostilities.
„What you have got to do is also understand that over the years the Netanyahu government has become extremely right-wing. And that there are people in the Israeli government now who are overt racists,“ Sanders told the CBS program. „You have in West Jerusalem people being evicted from their homes. Tremendous pressure on people within Israel, the Arab community, as well as Gaza.“
(18.05.2021)
Gideon Sa‘ar, head of the New Hope party, is looking into a power-sharing government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Haaretz has learned.
Sa‘ar has agreed to advance the initiative by the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Betzalel Smotrich, after Naftali Bennett announced that establishing a „government of change“ headed by him and Yair Lapid was off the table.
Lapid, who has been tasked with forming a coalition after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mandate expired, also accused Kahanist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir of having a central role in the escalation in tensions that led to rioting around the country and ultimately Israel‘s flare-up with Gaza. “No one would let a card-carrying lunatic like Itamar Ben-Gvir to set Jerusalem and then the entire country ablaze.”
(10.05.2021)
Religious Zionist Party chief MK Bezalel Smotrich, who arrived at the contentious area with several members of his faction, slammed law enforcement and security forces‘ for their lax treatment against Palestinian violence and called for the formation of a stable government that can tackle the unrest.
“A right-wing policy is one thing,” the officials were quoted as saying. “But expressions against Muslims and Arabs by Members of Knesset [Israel Parliament] that are a part of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government will harm and sabotage the normalization between Israel and Arab countries.”
The Islamist United Arab List party, headed by Mansour Abbas, and Naftali Bennett‘s Yamina have not yet declared their support for either bloc.
Likud bleibt zwar mit 30 Mandaten die stärkste politische Kraft, aber selbst mit seinem ultrarechten Rivalen Naftali Bennett von der Jamina-Partei käme sein Lager nur auf 59 von 120 Mandaten. Die arabische Partei Ra’am schafft die 3,25-Prozent-Hürde und ist nun Zünglein an der Waage.
Ra’am erhält fünf Mandate.
Official final results are not expected before Friday. But the partial tallies suggested that both Mr. Netanyahu’s alliance and its opponents would need the support of a small, Islamist Arab party, Raam, to form a majority coalition.
In the final days before the election, the Religious Zionist Party, headed by Bezalel Smotrich was viewed as being in danger of falling below the electoral threshold of four Knesset seats.
It shows candidates from across the political spectrum would form a coalition with the Joint List alliance of majority-Arab parties, revoke the law of return, change Independence Day to Nakba Day, make Yasser Arafat a national hero, and institute a national day of support for Hamas. It drew particular condemnation for showing Labor Party candidate Ibtisam Mara‘ana sending an image of Adolf Hitler with a heart icon.
The Knesset on Wednesday voted against forming a commission of inquiry that will probe conflicts of interest of Supreme Court justices.
Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Likud party said it would back the initiative by far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich of the Yamina faction to establish such a commission.
Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz‘s Kahol Lavan party called the move „a declaration of war on democracy.
‚I want to maintain a Jewish majority, not just in the State of Israel but in the Negev as well‘
Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich, known for incendiary anti-Arab comments, said on Thursday that the birth rates of Israeli Bedouins posed an existential threat for the Jewish State, akin to a bomb that must be diffused.
Vote by right-wing party’s central committee also paves way for alliance with Betzalel Smotrich’s National Union
The Hayamin Hehadash and Union of Right-Wing Parties announced Monday they would run on a joint ticket in September’s election under the name United Right, following a meeting of party leaders Ayelet Shaked, Naftali Bennett, Rafi Peretz and Bezalel Smotrich.
MK Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the National Union party, has already announced that he supports passing legislation to spare Netanyahu from standing trial while in office. Two other parties, Hayamin Hehadash and United Torah Judaism, have said they would consider supporting such a bill.
But the Kulanu party said it would oppose any such legislation.