Education Minister and Jewish Home chairman Rabbi Rafi Peretz on Sunday expressed concern over US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” peace plan.
“I am very concerned about the plan,” Rabbi Peretz told Arutz Sheva after the Cabinet meeting in which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s proposal to authorize the community of Mevo’ot Yericho in the Jordan Valley was approved.
“This plan talks about communities that will be isolated and surrounded by Palestinian communities. This is a death sentence to those communities. I saw it in other places. We need to allow prosperity and to bring in hundreds of thousands of residents here. We will do that. A strong Yamina says that we fight with all our might for the land of Israel and we fight with all our might for the Jewish identity,” he added.
Asked about the Likud’s argument that Yamina will be in the Knesset and the coalition in any case and that a bigger Likud is more important, Rabbi Peretz said, “In 2009, Netanyahu had three fewer votes than Tzipi Livni and he ended up heading the government. What matters is who has enough power to have 61 MKs [in his coalition]. A strong Yamina means you have two ballots in one: One ballot is a vote for Bibi and the second is a vote for settlement, for Jewish identity, for insisting on the values of the land of Israel, for a revolution in the legal system.”
“There’s no such thing that a large party wins. If they don’t have 61 MKs with us there are, unfortunately, options for national unity and we all know that there is a left that wants to fight Jewish identity and talks about a secular state.”