Israel’s Attorney General: Don’t Let Kahanist Party Leader Run For Office
Avichai Mandelblit Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis March 6, 2019
Israel’s Attorney General recommended that Israel’s Central Elections Committee ban the leader of an extremist Jewish party at a volatile meeting of the Elections Committee on Wednesday.
In his letter the committee, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit advised banning Otzma Yehudit party head Michael Ben-Ari from running in the upcoming Israeli elections for incitement to racism, just as Rabbi Meir Kahane’s own party was barred from running in Israeli elections in 1988. Mandelblit did not recommend that Ben-Ari’s fellow party member, Itamar Ben-Gvir, be barred.
At the meeting of the elections committee on Wednesday, Ben-Gvir and Ben-Ari engaged in a shouting match with left-wing politicians, according to a report in Israel National News.
“I’m not a racist,” Ben-Ari told the committee, according to the Times of Israel. “They’re making me into a madman, a demon.”
Outside the room where the committee was meeting, a Knesset member with the left-wing party Meretz, Issawi Frej, shouted at Ben-Gvir, according to the Times of Israel. “I as an Arab have to tolerate this racist? You as Jews should be ashamed!” he said.
Any decision on Ben Ari’s candidacy by the Central Elections Committee will likely be appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
