Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett struck back at the Likud’s attacks on his
party on Thursday, pleading with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop
harming the Right bloc.
Speaking at an event at Ariel University, Bennett
responded to charges from the Likud that Bayit Yehudi’s Knesset candidates
included extremists and people who favor discrimination against women and
homosexuals.
“When the Likud saw that attacking me did not work, they
switched to an attack on my party’s candidates by twisting their words and
taking them out of context,” Bennett said. “I tell my friends in the Likud:
Enough with the hatred. This is not the way to build a state, and this is not
the way to stop us.”
Bennett noted that his party had three women among
its top 12 candidates and none of them required reserved slots to get elected,
while the only candidate in the top 12 of the joint Likud- Yisrael Beytenu list
was Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver, who, Bennett said, “is not a
Likudnik.”
The one issue where Bennett confirmed the Likud’s accusations
was on gay marriage, which he said his party opposes having the state
recognize.
Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat had criticized Bayit
Yehudi, saying that “homophobes needed to be taken out of the closet.”
In
a personal attack on Bayit Yehudi, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan
said he did not send his children to religious- Zionist schools because of the
separation between the sexes starting in the first grade encouraged by rabbis
tied to Bayit Yehudi.
Separately, the prime minister will warn the
nation’s citizens of regional dangers in the Likud Beytenu’s campaign video,
which will be broadcast on television next week.
A preview of the
campaign clip features Netanyahu in his office, pointing to a map of the Middle
East.
“When I entered this office, I requested that this map be hung in
front of me,” he says in the video. “As prime minister of Israel, I must always
look reality in the eye. Our region is undergoing a great
upheaval.”
Netanyahu pointed to Syria, Lebanon and Sinai as the launching
pads for attempted terrorist attacks that his government worked to prevent, and
indicated Iran on the map, saying he enlisted the world’s help to fight the
nuclear threat. In addition, he mentioned the Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries
deployed in the South and the nearly completed fence on the Egyptian
border.
The prime minister asked for citizens’ help to finish important
security missions such as filling Israel with Iron Dome batteries, installing
fences along every border and, “most important of all,” stopping Iran from
obtaining nuclear weapons.
This will only happen with a strong ruling
party, Netanyahu concluded, calling for Israelis to vote for Likud Beytenu.
