âWe have 64 mandates that arenât willing to give up on the judicial system. We have 64 mandates that demand judicial reform,â he says, referring to the number of seats the coalition holds in the 120-member parliament.
âWe say to the High Court of Justice political party⊠we donât want your reasonableness,â 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-Taâal parliamentary faction likened the National Guard to âthe brown shirtsâ of the Nazi paramilitary, âor the yellow shirts,â 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. âWe wonât allow you to form fascist militias in the service of Kahanism,â 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 â founded by a radical American rabbi, Meir Kahane, and banned by Israel â 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 wouldnât play a major role in government.
What a difference a year makes.
âWhen we form the government, I will promote the Deportation Law, which will deport anyone who acts against the State of Israel or IDF soldiers,â Ben-Gvir said in the interview. âThose 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.â
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 doesnât 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 â 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 â 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 âthe leftâ 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 âleftâ with the arguably racist determiner âbacked by Arabsâ to drive home the oppositionâs subversive treachery.
(25.2.2019) Last week, the remnants of the National Religious Party â known in its latest incarnation as Habayit Hayehudi â 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.