‘Won’t bow my head’ to US lawmakers

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he would not “bow [his] head” to United States lawmakers who have warned Jerusalem against allowing far-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir to make further political gains after the upcoming election.

“We are a democracy and we will decide who will be in the next government,” Netanyahu told Charedi radio station Kol Barama. “I know how to stand up for us. My ability is to not bow my head, and to say ‘no’ when necessary.”

At least two pro-Israel Democrats in the US Congress have cautioned Israel against further legitimising Ben Gvir. Senator Robert Menendez issued a warning during a closed meeting with Netanyahu last month.

“I said to Menendez: ‘Are you talking to me about [Ben Gvir] who believes in the State of Israel and supports IDF soldiers? I haven’t heard a word about [Defence Minister Benny] Gantz and [Prime Minister Yair] Lapid partnering with [Ra’am leader] Mansour Abbas and the Muslim Brotherhood, who deny Israel as a Jewish state and go to the mourning tents of murderers of Jews,'” Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

Netanyahu is widely reported to have made Ra’am generous offers while wooing the party as he sought support for forming a government after the March 2021 elections.

Netanyahu said on Sunday that Ben Gvir can “certainly” be a minister if the former premier forms a government after the upcoming elections, and on Monday said firmly that Ben Gvir would be a minister in his coalition, reversing his previously stated opposition to having the far-right politician in his cabinet.

In a bid to improve his chances of returning to power before the previous election, the Likud leader orchestrated a merger deal that ensured the entry of Ben Gvir’s extremist Otzma Yehudit into the Knesset. He worked to encourage a similar agreement ahead of the upcoming November 1 election.

Far-right MK Ben Gvir is number two on the Religious Zionism slate, which is projected to win between 12 and 14 seats, positioning himself to receive a senior cabinet posting if Netanyahu manages to form the kind of hard-right, religious coalition on which he has been campaigning.

Ben Gvir is a self-described disciple of extremist rabbi and former MK Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was banned and declared a terror group in the 1980s in both Israel and the US. Like the late Kahane, Ben Gvir has also been convicted on terror charges, though he insists he has moderated in recent years and does not hold the same beliefs as the Kach founder.

Ben Gvir was convicted of incitement to racism in 2007 for holding a sign at a protest reading: “Expel the Arab enemy.”

Until it began to harm him politically, he kept a picture of Baruch Goldstein on a wall of his Hebron home. Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. Recently, Ben Gvir said he no longer considers Goldstein a “hero”.

In the interview, Netanyahu also called on the Charedi public to go out and vote, warning against apathy.

“There is complacency. The world of Torah is in danger. I can’t believe that people are considering staying at home,” he said.

In a further bid to attract ultra-Orthodox voters, Netanyahu said his potential government would scrap the current government’s tax increases on disposable plates and cutlery – which Charedi parties said targeted their constituents, a sector of society that relies heavily on single-use plastics – as well as on sweetened drinks.

On Monday, National Unity party leader Benny Gantz said he believes the Charedi parties will reconsider their years-long alliance with Likud. The comments came hours after United Torah Judaism chief Yitzhak Goldknopf, slated to enter Knesset after the election, said his party remains committed to a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and Gantz last Thursday both vowed not to sit with each other after the election.

Most polls, while notoriously unreliable, show Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc gaining around 60 seats – one short of a majority – with Lapid’s centre-left coalition holding around 56, possibly extending a political deadlock that has led to five national elections since 2019.

TIMES OF ISRAEL