The decision of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to leave Bayit Yehudi and form the New Right Partywill “lead to Oslo 2,” according to Culture Minister Miri Regev.“If they wanted to emulate Likud, they did a small and miserable imitation,” Regev said to KAN, Israel’s Public Broadcaster, on Tuesday morning. She noted that the move was Bennett and Shaked “abandoning their home.”Bennett and Shaked responded to the attack on the party’s Twitter account: “Miri Regev’s attack on the New Right is hypocritical. Regev spoke enthusiastically about the disengagement when the Likud expelled 8,000 Jews from their homes and gave their land to Hamas. Whoever releases 1,000 terrorists is not a true rightist. The national public knows how to distinguish between a real rightist and someone who just says empty rightist words.”They included a video of Regev in their response of when she served as the IDF spokesperson during the expulsion from Gush Katif, where she reported from the field and defined the deportees as “criminals” and “barbarians.”Bennett and Shaked announced on December 29 that they were leaving Bayit Yehudi and forming a new religious and secular party, which is vying for votes in the April 9 elections.During the announcement on Saturday in a press conference in Tel Aviv after years of contemplating the move, Bennett and Shaked announced. Bennett and Shaked vowed to take votes away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.“We greatly appreciate Netanyahu and his contributions over the years to Israel but the real Right, the whole nationalist camp, cannot be captives of one person,” Bennett said. “With New Right, Israel is winning again.”Bennett criticized Netanyahu for calling an election a month after saying that the security situation made holding elections irresponsible. He also claimed that the prime minister did not take his former party’s concerns about the threat from Hamas in the Gaza Strip seriously.“The influence of Bayit Yehudi has been lost and will not return,” Bennett lamented. “The prime minister thinks religious Zionists are in his pocket and no matter how much he harms the religious Zionists, they will continue to go along with him.”Bennett and Shaked will formally break off from the Bayit Yehudi faction, taking along with them MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli to the new party, because three MKs were needed to legally leave a faction of eight and take party funding with them. The Knesset House Committee will hold a meeting on Sunday to authorize their request. New Right will alternate between religious and secular candidates on its list.The party will firmly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.Yvette J. Deane, Lahav Harkov and Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
Culture minister says expect ‘Oslo 2’ with founding of New Right Party
Bennett and Shaked responded to the attack on their Twitter account, writing, "Miri Regev's attack on Hayemin Hahadash is hypocritical."
