Defense Minister Naftali Bennett: Doing the right thing

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett did that late Wednesday evening by steadfastly refusing to incorporate the far-right, Kahanist Otzma Yehudit Party onto his Yamina list.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, 2019. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, 2019.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Sometimes a politician just has to do the right thing.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett did that late Wednesday evening by steadfastly refusing to incorporate the far-right, Kahanist Otzma Yehudit Party onto his Yamina list.
By so doing, Bennett showed that even in politics there are lines that must not be crossed; that even in politics there are principles that must be upheld.
And what’s the principle here? That a party whose ideology is racist and whose roots are in the outlawed Kach Party of assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane must not be allowed into the mainstream. That an ideology and rhetoric that marginalizes and demonizes the country’s Arab minority, a minority representing more than 20% of the population, is simply beyond the pale.
Bennett explained it well himself when he wrote on his Facebook page why he would not join up with Otzma Yehudit, headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“I will not include someone on my electoral list who has a picture in his living room of a person who murdered 29 innocent people,” he wrote in reference to a picture of Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
“This should be so self-evident that I am shocked that I need to explain it. Imagine a US congressman who had a picture of someone on his wall who killed 29 Jews in a synagogue. Does this sound logical?”
Alluding to the intense pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly placed on him to include Ben-Gvir on his list, Bennett added: “I don’t care how much I am pressured; it’s not even an option – it won’t happen. This is my final decision.”
And what makes Bennett’s move even more commendable is that he made the decision knowing full well that it could lead – as it did in the elections in September – to the loss of tens of thousands of votes, possibly equivalent to two Knesset seats, for the Right bloc: a bloc he is very much a part of and he wants to see continue as the governing coalition.
Yet he still refused to let Ben-Gvir on his list so as not to be sullied by association with a party whose ideology, if implemented, would doom Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state.
The Kahane ideology of which Otzma Yehudit is an outgrowth was so odious that even Yitzhak Shamir, who was no leftist, led walk-outs from the Knesset plenum when Kahane rose to speak in the early 1980s. Shamir also was instrumental in getting legislation passed that barred parties which incite racism from running for the Knesset.
Some will argue that as extreme as Ben-Gvir is on the Right, there are those on the Left in the Arab Joint List who are equally as racist, who aid and abet terrorists, and who deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Why can they sit in the Knesset, while Ben-Gvir cannot?
The answer to that question is painfully simple: two wrongs don’t make a right. The leaders of the Joint List should keep extreme ideologies out of the mainstream in the same way that Bennett is keeping Otzma Yehudit out. That they don’t does not mean that Bennett should follow their do-nothing path.
By doing the right thing on this issue, Bennett also cast a shadow on the actions Netanyahu took on the matter.
Netanyahu, who engineered a merger of Otzma Yehudit with Bayit Yehudi in April’s elections, wanted to do the same thing this time around as well.
And just as the actions he took in April were worthy of the worldwide condemnations they garnered, so too are the steps he took now, to try to mainstream Ben-Gvir, indefensible.
Yes, leaving the party out in the cold, and the certainty that if Otzma Yehudit runs on its own it will not cross the electoral threshold, means that thousands of votes – which could very well be the difference in a close election – will be wasted. But not every means to an end is justifiable.
It is understandable why Netanyahu was concerned about the loss of these votes. What is not understandable is his inability to realize that not everything in the service of remaining in power is acceptable.
There are lines, there are limits – even in politics. Bennett, to his credit, reminded us of that on Wednesday.


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