The Reform movement on Thursday appealed to the central election commission to disqualify the Otzma Yehudit Knesset election list as well as three of its members: Itamar Ben-Gvir, Baruch Marzel and Ben-Zion Gopstein, for incitement to racism, Kan 11 reported.
Over the past few weeks, the Reform movement has formulated an evidentiary foundation for the application, and on Thursday its attorneys said in a statement: “Just as Kahane has been disqualified, so must his successors be disqualified – the Otzma Yehudit party and its leaders. The request for disqualification unfolds a broad evidence foundation showing that, just as Ben-Ari has been disqualified only recently, so we must disqualify the current Otzma Yehudit candidates who also hold extreme racist views, and have declared their intention to implement these views from within the Knesset.”
In the April 9 election, the Reform led the move to disqualify Michael Ben-Ari over incitement to racism.
Otzma Yehudit responded to the Reform movement’s move, saying: “On the day Jewish blood is spilled and depraved individuals kill a soldier, the Reform movement chooses to ask for our disqualification. Obviously, they are scared, and their nightmare is that we will enter the Knesset and save the right-wing bloc. They’ll receive their answer at the ballot boxes.”
Gilad Kriv, CEO of the Reform Movement and a Democratic Camp (Barak-Meretz — DI) candidate, responded: “The disqualification request is a clear answer to the unethical efforts of senior politicians and parties to rehabilitate Meir Kahane’s successors, and give a foothold inside the Israeli legislature to a racist and dangerous agenda.”