Yair Lapid to Shaked: Reject Far Right

Shaked said she saw Otzma Yehudit as an integral part of the bloc she is building.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Ayelet Shaked hosts a goodbye party as she leaves her position as Justice Minister. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Ayelet Shaked hosts a goodbye party as she leaves her position as Justice Minister.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Blue and White MK Yair Lapid called on new New Right leader Ayelet Shaked on Sunday to exclude the Far Right Otzma Yehudit Party from the right-wing bloc she is building to run in the September 17 election.
Speaking on a tour of Jerusalem's Armon Hanetziv promenade, Lapid said the city was destroyed by zealotry and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was repeating his mistake from the April election of pushing for Otzma Yehudit leaders who are followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane to be included in a bloc running to the right of Likud.
"The good name of religious Zionism should not be stained by Kahanists," Lapid said. "Religious Zionism is Roy Klein [an IDF officer killed saving his soldiers] and not [Hebron massacre murderer] Baruch Goldstein."
Shaked said she saw Otzma Yehudit as an integral part of the bloc she is building.
Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir responded to Lapid by saying that the real stain comes from Blue and White depending on the support of Arab MKs to form a coalition.
"When Lapid is stressed, we are happy," Ben-Gvir said. "Lapid's opposition to a large bloc on the Right shows that the Left realizes that a bloc with Otzma Yehudit on the Right will help win the election."