After permitting three terrorist releases, Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett has now drawn a red line in the sand, announcing on Thursday night if a fourth terrorist release is approved by the cabinet, he will break from the coalition. The announcement came amid rumors that the United States will release Jonathan Pollard before Pesach and in return, Israel will release an additional 430 terrorists.
Bennett sent a special release to the media to make his position clear. He points out that the PA (Palestinian Authority) has unilaterally turned to the United Nations so today, “Israel is facing a new reality. The PA’s actions represent a blatant violation of agreements that have been reached since the Oslo Agreement”.
“The deal in the works, which includes the release of Israeli Arab citizens is an affront to Israel’s sovereignty. The Bayit Yehudi party will object to this. In the event such a proposal passes, Bayit Yehudi will leave the government for releasing terrorists, Arabs with Israeli citizenship”. Bennett ignores that his party was partner to previous releases that included Israeli Arab terrorists.
“On the eve of Pesach, it is important for us to remember that we went from slavery to freedom in order to have a system of law and order that will protect Israeli citizens and not a system that is victimized by the extortion efforts of a group of terrorists that releases the murderers of its citizens. This is an act of
Extortion and submission to terrorism that is unacceptable to us. We cannot permit trampling the minimum level of national honor.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
Not bright. Since it is now virtually impossible for Likud to form a goverment that includes hareidim, Bayit Yehudi’s replacement in the government, with or without elections, will be a party that is radically to its left and will be inclined to demand strong actions against the government.
It would be reasonable for Bennett to want new elections only if the polls suggested that Likud and Bayit Yehudi would get over 60 seats – and they aren’t even lose to that. Most polls suggest they’ll get 45 seats, and for a general (non-hareidi, non-Arab, largely middle class) party, a mistake of a third in polling is unlikely.
Great way to get rid of him! Hopefully Lapid will follow suit…
Likud could easily form a coalition with the Haredim. Just get rid of Lapid as well and poof haredim are in.the only question is if Bennet is right that freeing terrorists is not the thing to do. not for “national honor” but for practical security. who wants murderers roaming the streets?
roshvrishon: Likud and Bennett would both have to agree to a Basic Law either ending conscription for everyone, or exempting yeshiva students and conscientious objectors. The reality is that their “base” is not aboutg to put up with that. It should be notge that almost all polls show that secular zionists, including the religious zionists, have a deep hatred of the hareidim. The Left might compromise (lefties don’t like getting drafted and have a warm spot for minority rights, so they can recast hareidim as a weird minority), but the Zionist Right is stuck.
Nothing but a Basic Law can undo the damage of Bennett’s pro-conscription campaign.
#3- It would not be easy at all. Netanyahu would also likely lose Kadima (which is no less strident than Yesh Atid: it toppled the previous government over the issue of the charedi draft). Even if HaBayit HaYehudi and the charedi parties could find some way to agree on coalition guidelines (which is pretty unlikely at this juncture) there is currently so much bad blood between them that Netanyahu would be loathe to form a coalition based on such a volatile match. He could, of course, also get rid of HaBayit HaYehudi and replace them with Labor, but he would then surely face an intifada from within Likud-Beiteinu itself, not to mention the beating he would likely take from his voters in the next election.