Netanyahu turns to Sa'ar as RZP remain firm in rejection of Ra'am
Smotrich posted video comparing Monsour Abbas to PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, JEREMY SHARONUpdated: APRIL 17, 2021 23:10Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the 2021 International Bible Contest for Youth on Thursday, Israel's Independence Day, April 15, 2021. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly called on New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar to join the other right-wing and religious parties to form a stable right-wing government.Netanyahu’s hopes of convincing Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and the rest of his ultra-nationalist party to form a minority government backed externally on the Islamist Ra’am Party appear to be waning, and his comments on Friday during an event in Ramat Gan indicate a renewed focus on getting Sa’ar, a former Likud MK and minister, to return to the pro-Netanyahu bloc.“The State of Israel needs a strong nationalist government, a stable right-wing government, that will last for years,” Netanyahu said in the Ramat Gan National Park. “I call on Naftali Bennett, Bezalel Smotrich and Gideon Sa’ar to put all considerations aside, and let’s establish the nationalist, right-wing government that the State of Israel is so in need of.“I call on Gideon Sa’ar: the Likud is your home, you grew up in this home, you will be received with open arms, this is not the time to establish a left-wing government, come join us and [we] will establish together a stable, right-wing government to guarantee our future in our land.”Earlier on Friday, the Likud party published a letter signed by several dozen Likud mayors and regional council chairmen, as well as hundreds of Likud branch chairmen, calling on Sa’ar to join Netanyahu in forming a new government using almost the exact same language Netanyahu used at the Ramat Gan event.“Gideon, do the right thing for our movement, for our country, and for our land. Come home!” they wrote.Later on Friday, Likud MK David Bitan joined Netanyahu’s call on Sa’ar to join a Likud-led government.“Like the prime minister said, we will welcome you with open arms, you are a part of us,” Bitan tweeted. “There’s a real opportunity for a stable right-wing government.”The Religious Zionist Party, which has been steadfast in its opposition to forming a minority government backed externally by Ra’am that appeared to have been Netanyahu’s initial direction after the election, put out a video on Saturday night condemning any such coalition. “Have you gone mad?” it asked.The video compared the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 with PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the subsequent peace process, with forming a government with Ra’am, saying that the former blew up in the country’s face due to intense Palestinian terrorism, and that the latter would have a similar effect.The video used footage of Arafat speaking about peace and coexistence, and then footage of him speaking more militantly about dying as martyrs for Palestine, although that footage appeared to predate the Oslo-Accords era.It then showed footage of Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas making a speech at the beginning of April talking about peace, partnership and tolerance, and a previous speech in March when he talked about Arab society having “lived through the Nakba, and clung to this land, and preserved its identity.”The Nakba is the term in Arabic meaning “catastrophe,” which Palestinians use to refer to the Israeli victory in the 1948 War of Independence.Smotrich tweeted on Friday that Netanyahu “has no intention of forming a government based on anti-Zionist, dangerous terror supporters,” in reference to Abbas. “Those who understand the Arab community know that on a long-term strategic level, the Islamic Movement is far more dangerous than secular national movements.“Giving [the Islamic Movement] more power and budgets is strengthening the extremist religious factors in the Arab community at the expense of the moderate entities with whom there is a chance of reaching coexistence, based on them giving up their national aspirations and forming a dialogue,” he added. “Netanyahu understands this, and unlike those who pretend to speak on his behalf... has not even hinted that he intends on forming a government that will rely on their support and strengthen them within the Arab sector.”Smotrich noted that Netanyahu had promised time and time again to not form a government that will rely on Abbas.“We shall continue to work together and to ensure the formation of a right-wing government,” Smotrich wrote.
