A leftist party that is running in the elections for the next Knesset has asked the Central Election Committee to disqualify Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir from running in the elections in the “Power to Israel” party.
The party that filed the appeal, leftist Eldad Yaniv’s Eretz Hadasha (lit. New Country), said that the three are guilty of incitement, racism and violation of democracy. Eretz Hadasha is also calling to disqualify Likud candidates Miri Regev and Danny Danon.
In the appeal, the Power to Israel members are called the "Flowers of Kahane" because of their support for the legacy of Rabbi Kahane. Regev and Danon are called the “Jewish Brotherhood”, a play on the Muslim Brotherhood, over their so-called "wild incitement" against non-Jews.
According to Eldad Yaniv, “Eretz Hadasha is a party that intends to defend democracy against extremism and support the equality of human beings. When we read that these two parties were calling to disqualify other parties using arguments of racism, we used their own arguments of racism and the voters should then ask themselves who the real racists are.”
Dekel David Ozer, a member of Eretz Hadasha, said, “These are the Kahane Flowers and the Jewish Brotherhood. Just as other countries have the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel unfortunately has the Jewish Brotherhood, racist people who see fit to incite in the name of Judaism. Those who incite and raise their hands against democracy - have no place in the Israeli Knesset.”
The five candidates in question probably irked Eretz Hadasha for their actions against illegal infiltrators from Africa and inciting Arab MKs. Regev and Danon took part in a rally in south Tel Aviv last May against Israel's growing illegal immigrant population.
Regev later came under fire for saying during the demonstration that “we will not allow” illegal immigration to “spread like a cancer in our society.” MK Ben-Ari has exposed the hypocrisy by both leftists and MKs and residents of Tel Aviv, who call to allow infiltrators to remain in the country but at the same time refuse to host them in their homes.
In addition, several Likud MKs, among them Danon, have called to disqualify Arab MK Hanin Zoabi from running for the next Knesset.
Zoabi took part in the 2010 attempt to violate Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas. Zoabi was aboard the ship Mavi Marmara, where IDF soldiers who boarded were violently attacked. A video clip indicates that she knew of the planned attack in advance.
Zoabi was later caught rubbing elbows with senior Hamas terrorists. She has also been criticized for anti-Israel speeches, such as one saying that Israel has “no right to a normal life” and a more recent address claiming that “the Israeli occupation” was behind the murder of Israelis in Bulgaria.
In response to the appeal, Power to Israel said that it “will continue to work for the land and people of Israel in spite of all the leftists. In the next Knesset we will work, this time as Knesset members with all the authority and power, against Israel's enemies who know well that we will act in any legal way to remove them from the Knesset. Tibi and Zoabi can start packing.”