ZOA and NCYI are OK with Bibi-Otzma deal; AIPAC and liberals say no

The National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America are defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to work with Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a right-wing party led by disciples of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was banned from the Knesset for its purported racist advocacy.

A wide range of centrist and liberal American Jewish groups slammed the merger. Most prominent among them was AIPAC, which rarely criticizes Israel on internal politics, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who called the deal that brought about the merger of Otzma Yehudit and Habayit Hayehudi “very disturbing.”

“[Netanyahu] obviously has some political calculation that drove him to it, but politics can’t dictate everything,” Hoenlein told the Associated Press. “You have to take into consideration all of the ramifications and all of the concerns.”

To form a government, Netanyahu would need the support of successful right-wing parties in addition to his own Likud. To win seats in the Knesset and create a governing coalition, each party must pass an electoral threshold, currently set at 3.25 percent. Small parties that do not receive at least that many votes won’t win any Knesset seats and their votes will be lost, thus parties that fear falling short of 3.25 percent seek to consolidate with — and pool their votes with those of — another party.

With the prime minister’s intervention, the right-wing Jewish Home party agreed to include on its slate for the April 9 elections Otzma Yehudit members Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir, self-professed followers of Kahane.

“Netanyahu acted to get right-wing parties to merge in order to meet the threshold necessary to secure a victory in the election,” NCYI President Farley Weiss told JTA. “He did it to have ministers of the national religious and national union parties in his coalition.”

NCYI likened Netanyahu’s action to the 1993 vote on the Oslo II accords, when a left-wing government relied on votes from Arab-Israeli political parties to secure passage of that agreement. That argument echoes one made over the weekend by Netanyahu on Twitter — where he called negative reaction to the merger “the height of absurdity.”

“What hypocrisy and double standards by the left,” he wrote on Facebook. “They are condemning a right-wing majority bloc with right-wing parties, while the left acted to bring extreme Islamists into the Knesset to create a majority bloc.”

Netanyahu listed numerous instances in which Israeli left-wing leaders, including Ehud Barak, Shelly Yachimovich, and the Labor and Meretz parties, partnered with or supported anti-Israel Arab candidates and parties.

“I don’t recall @AIPAC and the @AJC
expressing misgivings when leftist Israeli government’s existed by the grace of Arab parties who support Israel’s annihilation,” tweeted New Right party candidate Caroline Glick.

AJC, the American Jewish Committee, wrote on Twitter that “the views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel.”

AJC noted that it “normally [does not] comment on political parties and candidates during an election,” but that in this case it was “compelled to speak out.” AJC added that “historically, the views of extremist parties, reflecting the extreme left or the extreme right, have been firmly rejected by mainstream parties,” a loosely worded allusion to Netanyahu’s assistance in facilitating the merger.

In response to the AJC tweets, AIPAC tweeted, “We agree with AJC. AIPAC has a longstanding policy not to meet with members of this racist and reprehensible party.”

Just hours after AIPAC’s tweet, it confirmed that Netanyahu would address the group’s annual policy conference in March, posting a tweet featuring a smiling Netanyahu and noting that the organization was “honored to announce” his participation. 

Netanyahu rival Benny Gantz praised AIPAC’s comments, stating that the unusual foray into internal Israeli politics “proves that Benjamin Netanyahu has once again crossed ethical red lines just to keep his seat, while causing serious harm to Israel’s image, Jewish morality and our important relationship with American Jewry.”

“When even our good friends feel the need to condemn, then it should be clear that a red line has been crossed,” wrote Yair Lapid, who has brought his Yesh Atid Party into a technical alliance with Gantz to form the Blue and White list and challenge Netanyahu.

In Israel, Modern Orthodox leader Benny Lau condemned the merger, calling it “a vote for the racism of Kahane,” the Jerusalem Post reported. Also, 80 rabbis signed a statement by Torat Chayim, an international association of Modern Orthodox Zionist Rabbis, saying that bringing Otzma Yehudit into the government is “truly a lamentable failure” by Netanyahu.

JTA reached out to the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America for comment on the issue. RCA responded that it doesn’t comment on Israeli politics.

Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-Israeli author who was a follower of Kahane in his youth and now stridently opposes the ideology, told i24 News, “I never thought I would see this day.”

“Every society has its fringe fanatics. But what Prime Minister Netanyahu has done, because he’s desperate, because he’s in an increasingly tight political race, is open the door to evil,” he said.

The ZOA called negative reaction to the move “strange, troubling and hypocritical.”

Otzma Yehudit said that groups like AIPAC “want to see the rise of the Israeli left to power and will be happy with a government that hands over territories and gives weapons to the enemy.” The right-wing party also suggested that members of AIPAC should move to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship “before they involve themselves in elections.”

“In any case, AIPAC’s hypocrisy rings loud and clear: We have never heard AIPAC condemn so strongly Joint Arab List MK’s Hanin Zoabi and Ahmad Tibi running for the Knesset,” they said in a statement. “They also never came out against certain Israeli leftists, such as Ofer Cassif, who called to cancel the Jewish state.”

Policy positions laid out on Otzma Yehudit’s website include support for aliyah, full Israeli control over the Temple Mount, preservation of national lands, eviction of Arabs affiliated with anti-Israel movements, assistance in emigration for Arabs who have expressed an interest in leaving Israel, an effort to reduce abortion, and encouragement of businesses in periphery areas.

The party’s foremost candidates are students of the late Rabbi Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of the Palestinians from territories controlled by Israel and something approaching a theocratic state of the Jews.