Failed Right Wing Party’s Solution to Israel’s Woes: Another Party
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Former MK Michael Ben Ari.
Photo Credit: Yori Yanover / JewishPress.com
Former National Union Michael Ben-Ari, who teamed up with colleague Aryeh Eldad to run in the Otzma (Power) party and come out with zero seats in the Knesset, announced Sunday he is forming a new party – the one that will really solve all of Israel’s problems.
After he and Eldad split off from the merged National Union-Jewish Home election list, citing it as too soft on the Arabs, Ben-Ari is politically divorcing Eldad.
Both former MKs are characters in their own right, Ben-Ari is an ordained rabbi and holds a doctorate degree, and the secular Eldad, a professor, is recognized as one of the foremost medical doctors in Israel. Both men share nationalist ideas.
Eldad and pulled off several great stunts as Knesset members, such as marching with an Israeli flag in Umm-el-Fahm, the head of the northern branch of the radical Muslim and anti-Zionist Islamic Movement.
Their most brilliant act was to highlight the plague of the infiltration of Africans into the country by buying paying the entrance fee for dozens of Sudanese to splash in a upper middle-class area swimming pool in northern Tel Aviv.
The locals were enraged and accused Eldad and Ben-Ari of incitement, but the MKs got their point across to all of the limousine liberals who could care less about illegal immigrants so long as they are in someone else’s territory.
Although they provided lots of color to the Knesset, remaining on the fringe of the fringe, apparently there is no room in the same room for super-egos.
Israelis suffered from more than 30 political parties in the last elections, and Ben-Ari apparently thinks he is so charismatic that he can duplicate Tzipi Livni with a party that is modeled after himself and can attract clones as running mates, such as his partner Itamar Gen-Gvir.
“Today, more than ever, the voice of the rightwing, the true voice of our path, will be heard in all of the country. The fight is for the identity and existence of a Jewish state,” according to his plea. Nothing more and nothing less – Ben-Ari and only Ben-Ari represents the real Jews.
“I call on all of you to join a new political movement, one that works to fulfill the vision of returning the Jews to their land” against internal and external enemies.
An associate of Ben-Ari, Hila Gorani, told the Jewish Press that is not fair to declare Otzma a failure because they actually won two seats in the Knesset but were a lacking a few thousands votes to cross the minimum number of votes needed for entry into the legislature.
She also explained that Otzma was formed because Ben-Ari and Eldad could not agree to be a part of the Jewish Home agenda due to party chairman Naftali Bennett’s acceptance of the Palestinian Authority in parts of Israel.
Gorani said Ben-Ari is working without Eldad because they do not have the same focus. Eldad has declared on numerous occasions that the Palestinians have a state of their own – Jordan. Ben-Ari has focused on the idea of granting Arabs the status of “residents” of Israel with the obligation to observe and respect Israel and Jewish laws, similar to the concept of “ger toshav” in the Bible.
Of course, Ben-Ari’s agenda may be exactly what should be – in the World to Come.
For all those interested, he will launch his new party with a bash on Wednesday in Petach Tikvah, adjacent to Tel Aviv.
Every journalist in Israel should wish Ben-Ari great success because he will provide lots of good headlines.
Please being $13 dollars with you, but $7 is enough if you are under 18.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.
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How delusional can the right-wing be to believe that there is virtue in throwing one's vote away on a fringe party? These jokers were given slots in Bayit Yehudi but were insulted by how low they were on the list. Turns out, if they had stuck around they would be in the Knesset. Instead in their "wisdom" they decided to fracture and already fractured right-wing. Otzma and Am Sallem cost the right at least 3 seats. Now Lapid is kingmaker. Israel needs electoral reform badly. Raising the threshold isn't the problem. Ballot access is the issue. A party should have to show through petition signatures that it can generate 4-5% support before it can get on the ballot. Having 30 parties on the ballot is the problem. Another option is a 2nd choice option. For instance, my 1st choice is Otzma and if they don't get any seats, then my 2nd choice is Bayit Yehudi. As for Otzma's ideology, it is racist and they know it is. That is the only logical conclusion by listening to them enough. They don't believe that Arabs should ever be secure in their property rights simply by virtue of the fact they are Arabs. If a Jew decides to pitch a tent in the Arab's backyard then that land automatically becomes Jewish land forever. According to Otzma, if an Arab sells his Arab neighbor's land to a settler then the Jew still gets the land and all the Arab gets is compensation. If a settler "innocently" buys land from a 12 year old Arab then how could the settler know that such a transaction is forbidden? It should still be honored. Of course the courts should have no say in this process; their only function is to put Arabs in jail. Having a party which proudly shares the ideology of the banned Kahne and which shares more in common with Serb nationalists than the Israeli right-wing is a discredit to a great nation like Israel. The voters rejected them for a reason.
the "Jokers" could not join Bennett, because they do not agree – like Bennett – to give the Palestinian Authority more territories.. maybe for that u nneed to be real Joker as Bennett…For the same reason, many of the people who voted for Otzma party, did so because they did not want to choose in a party that agreed to give away areas to terorist (A + B ) and more further do not want to choose party that annex 50 Palestinians or more and hapilly make them equal citizens in the state of Israel.