“We have 64 mandates that aren’t willing to give up on the judicial system. We have 64 mandates that demand judicial reform,” he says, referring to the number of seats the coalition holds in the 120-member parliament.
“We say to the High Court of Justice political party… we don’t want your reasonableness,” adds Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
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.
(31.03.2023)
Addressing the protest, the head of the Hadash-Ta’al parliamentary faction likened the National Guard to “the brown shirts” of the Nazi paramilitary, “or the yellow shirts,” MK Ayman Odeh said in reference to the color included in the logo of several Israeli nationalist groups, including the Jewish supremacist Kach movement that Ben Gvir was active in as a teen. Kach was founded by the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who Ben Gvir and other members of his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party have described themselves as disciples of. “We won’t allow you to form fascist militias in the service of Kahanism,” Odeh said at the protest.
In recent years, Israel has become terrifyingly more extreme. Everything we were warned about is happening right before our eyes.
In his desperation to vacuum up every last vote on the right, to establish a government pliant enough to interfere with, if not quash, his criminal trial, Netanyahu engineered a political path to bring the far right in from the cold. He has diligently mentored their fortunes, even hosting Ben-Gvir at his home in Caesarea.
For decades, Ben Gvir was a political untouchable. His roots in the overtly racist Kach party — founded by a radical American rabbi, Meir Kahane, and banned by Israel — put him beyond the fringe of even the most right-wing parties. That changed last year when then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had lost his governing coalition and was desperate for a few more parliamentary votes, invited Ben Gvir into his alliance.
Netanyahu downplayed his maneuver, largely dismissing Ben Gvir as a backbencher who wouldn’t play a major role in government.
What a difference a year makes.
“When we form the government, I will promote the Deportation Law, which will deport anyone who acts against the State of Israel or IDF soldiers,” Ben-Gvir said in the interview. “Those who throw stones and Molotov cocktails at soldiers will be deported from here. Those who work against the state like [Joint List MK] Ofer Cassif will be deported. Maybe to Europe. They need working hands there.”
However, he said, the same law would not apply to Jews.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Otzma Yehudit party head hoping to be part of Israel‘s next government, declared he would support a deportation policy for anyone who works ‚against the state of Israel,‘ specifically mentioning Joint List lawmakers
| from @bahaa_alghoul
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of a small ultranationalist opposition party and a follower of the late rabbi and political extremist, Meir Kahane, entered the compound early Sunday along with dozens of supporters.
Victory for the pro-Netanyahu bloc might make him unstoppable, but the opposition‘s impulse to depose the ruler could lead to some short-term pragmatism
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 far-right Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit, announced on Wednesday that it will run on a joint slate with the National Union Party in Israel‘s March election.
National Union said that they are still in talks with the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party and welcome a merger.
„We must not reach a situation in which one of [the right-wing] parties doesn’t pass the electoral threshold, thus wasting thousands right-wing votes,“ the statement added.
In addition, it said that Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Rafi Peretz and Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir call on National Union‘s Bezalel Smotrich to „Close ranks as soon as today, and join the ranks of religious Zionism. National Union is an inseparable part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties.“
The poll also contains good news for Netanyahu – it has the far-right Otzma Yehudit party passing the electoral threshold and receiving four seats, giving the right-wing bloc led by Likud 59 seats without the support of Avigdor Lieberman‘s Yisrael Beiteinu – close to the 61 required to create a coalition, with the center-left bloc garnering 54 seats.
(01.07.2019)
Friedman, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, evangelical preacher John Hagee, conservative TV host Mike Huckabee and Netanyahu‘s son, Yair, have been among the many politicians and VIPs to attend parties at Simon Falic‘s Jerusalem home.
The Falics also support American politicians, both Democratic and Republican. Since 2000, they have given over $1.7 million to pro-Israel politicians, including Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
(01.07.2019)
The Falic family of Florida, owners of the ubiquitous chain of Duty Free Americas shops, funds a generous and sometimes controversial philanthropic empire in Israel that runs through the corridors of power and stretches deep into the occupied West Bank.
An Associated Press investigation shows that the family has donated at least $5.6 million to settler organizations in the West Bank and east Jerusalem over the past decade, funding synagogues, schools and social services as well as far-right causes considered extreme even in Israel.
(01.07.2019)
Israel‘s Supreme Court banned on Sunday Kahanist leader Michael Ben Ari from running in the April 9 general election and reversed the disqualification of Arab joint slate Balad-United Arab List and Ofer Cassif, a member of political alliance Hadash-Ta‘al.
If we are to defeat this dangerous alliance, we must provide a clear alternative. The only way for the left to prevail is to choose solidarity and the shared Jewish-Arab struggle for peace, equality and democracy.
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel represent 20 percent of the population. We cannot change the course of the country alone. But there is no electoral math that leads to victory for a center-left-wing coalition without the participation of the Arab parties.
The Central Election Committee disqualified the Arab joint slate Balad-United Arab List and Ofer Cassif, a member of politicial alliance Hadash-Ta‘al, from running in the election on Wednesday, opposing the opinion of Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit.
After successfully instilling public opinion with an automatic association between “the left” and disloyalty in the service of malevolent foreigners, Netanyahu and his Likud messengers are studiously attaching the stigma to their political rivals including, most ludicrously, former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and his newly-formed Blue and White party, which would be classified as center-right by any normal standard. For those too dense to comprehend, Netanyahu now insists on expanding the term “left” with the arguably racist determiner “backed by Arabs” to drive home the opposition’s subversive treachery.
(25.2.2019) Last week, the remnants of the National Religious Party – known in its latest incarnation as Habayit Hayehudi – merged with Otzma Yehudit, a party whose members embrace the racist ideology of the late Kahane and are disciples of his. The party he originally founded, known as Kach, is outlawed in Israel. The alliance was pushed by Netanyahu, who feared that without the Kahanists joining their ranks, Habayit Hayehudi might not reach the electoral threshold, jeopardizing his ability to form a right-wing majority bloc after the April 9 election.
American Jewish Committee (AJC) does not normally comment on political parties and candidates during an election. But with the announcement that Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), a new political party formed by longtime followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is now seeking election to the Knesset, we feel compelled to speak out.
Netanyahu lost his moral compass years ago, but his electoral deal with Israel‘s most extreme racists is a moment of crisis, and a test, for American Jews. Don‘t fail it
(21.2.2019)
The order of candidates is:
1. Rabbi Rafi Peretz (Jewish Home)
2. Bezalel Smotrich (National Union)
3. Motti Yogev (Jewish Home)
4. Ofir Sofer (National Union)
5. Michael Ben Ari (Otzma Yehudit)
6. Idit Silman (Jewish Home)
7. Orit Strook (National Union)
8. Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit)
9. Yossi Cohen (National Union)
10. Davidi Ben Zion (Jewish Home)
(video)
One of those factions is Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, made up of followers of the late Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist American Israeli rabbi. Israeli commentators and U.S. Jewish groups immediately decried the move, saying the faction was clearly an offshoot of Kahane’s Kach party, a group that is designated a terrorist organization by the State Department and banned in Israel.
(20.2.2019) Habayit Hayehudi approved the merger with Otzma Yehudit, a right-wing party led by followers of racist Rabbi Meir Kahane who was banned from running for Knesset in 1988