Yamina chairman and Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett spoke on Monday at the Knesset plenum about a new Shabbat newsletter that he came across for the first time in synagogue this past Shabbat.
"I will tell you a story," Bennett said as he turned to Labor-Gesher-Meretz chairman MK Amir Peretz, who was sitting in the plenum. "I was at the synagogue over Shabbat, I found a wonderful Shabbat newsletter put together by some party. You would think it was Shas, you would think it was Likud, but no, it was put out by Labor-Meretz. It's beautiful, it's flattering."
"Now I say to myself, I ask myself: ‘This is an awfully interesting thing, this is a campaign I have never seen before’. Everyone is targeting religious Zionism," Bennett added.
"Blue and White have a campaign with the flag which is stained with mustard (a play on the Hebrew word Chardal which means both mustard and is also an acronym for Haredi Leumi -ed.), the Labor party is targeting us, Liberman is targeting us, Shas launched a religious Zionist headquarters, not to mention Likud," he continued.
"Listen to a story," Bennett continued. "Last Shabbat I was in Haifa at a hesder yeshiva. I visit 15-20 synagogues every Shabbat, it is exhausting but important. I was in the not-so-famous yeshiva of Rabbi Zini in Haifa. I am told yesterday that the Prime Minister is going to visit the same yeshiva. Everywhere I go, everyone else follows. And all we have is seven lousy seats.”
"Why is everyone targeting religious Zionism? I'll tell you why. Religious Zionism, until ten years ago, we were valiant, nice and with no power to make an impact at all. With those seven seats, we had a Science and Space Minister who was not even a cabinet member. They told us ‘go to the settlement enterprise, go to the army, go the elite units, but when it comes to state affairs, step aside, deal with issues of religion’. And now today, oh no! There is a Defense Minister with a kippah, a Justice Minister from the religious Zionist party, who are cabinet members. We are making an impact,” Bennett explained.