Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, head of the Nir hesder yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, has sharply attacked the conduct of members of the Blue & White Party in recent days, following its rapprochement with the predominantly Arab Joint List.
“I can't hold myself back from making a huge outcry at the crimes of the Blue and White party,” Rabbi Waldman told Arutz Sheva.
“It is a terrible crime, a crime of national proportions, to base the formation of a majority government in Israel on cooperation with supporters of terror whose ambition is to destroy the Jewish State,” he said. “To this, I add their crime of seizing control of the Knesset via partnering with those who support terror.”
“These actions stem from their original crime of knowingly deceiving Israeli voters with the promise that they would not join forces with the supporters of terror from the Joint Arab List – neither directly nor indirectly,” added Rabbi Waldman.
“We must all cry out in pain and protest against the Blue and White party and its leaders, a bitter outcry to ‘Gather all the Jews together’ [a phrase from the Scroll of Esther read on Purim, referring to the plans of the wicked Haman to kill all the Jews –ed.] Everyone has to take part in this bitter outcry against the party that continually proclaims that it has a majority, when it knows that the majority of Jews in this country voted against them, out of suspicion that they would do exactly what they have done – namely, join forces with supporters of terror in order to seize control of the country.”
Rabbi Waldman admits that “the public is weakened right now; after all, many of us are in quarantine due to our age or other reasons. This limits the possibilities for gathering together and listening [to the words of our rabbis]. But we must still protest and cry out against these lies and these terrible crimes.”
“I remember how in the year 5744 (1974) there was an attempt to form a minority government with the support of the Arabs. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook made a huge outcry at this, writing that such a government was not worthy of the name ‘government’ because a majority means a Jewish majority.
“He stated then that forming a government that depended on Arab support was a desecration of G-d’s Name. But what we are seeing now is much worse! They want to establish a government not just with Arabs, but with those who actively promote terror and have made statements in support of murderers. Unfortunately, these [members of the Joint Arab List] have been approved by the Supreme Court [despite attempts to have them disqualified from serving in the Knesset].
“I can only hope that our leaders – from all sectors, from all walks of life – will come to their senses and reject this distortion of what a Jewish State should be, and return to the true principles of Zionism,” he concluded.