MK Ofer Shelah (Blue and White) menacingly criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu this morning, making it clear that his party would not hesitate to cooperate with the Joint Arab List to prevent him from forming a government.
"Netanyahu's statement yesterday that he won the election because the Joint Arab List doesn't count is his official declaration of war on the Jewish and democratic state of Israel," Shelach interpreted.
He said, "In the Israel of the Founding Fathers, including the Jabotinsky of Son of Arabia, Son of Nazareth, My Son fame, the Arabs and other non-Zionists are equal citizens. In the State of Netanyahu they have no right to vote, be represented, or participate in the democratic game.
"In Israel, a man who spoke like Netanyahu was a boil on the image the plenum and the Prime Minister would exit the chamber when he spoke, as Shamir did to Kahane. In the State of Netanyahu, he dares not only to present himself as Prime Minister, but to talk about unity as well," Shelah added.
During the tenure of then-Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Kahane in the 11th Knesset between 1984-8, Kahane would address an empty Knesset plenum as most MKs regardless of party affiliation boycotted his speeches. MK Kahane would read verbatim from Maimonides in an attempt to demonstrate that opposition was not directed at him personally, but at Jewish law as incompatible with Western democracy.
Shelah closed: "There's a majority in the new Knesset for the State of Israel and against the State of Netanyahu. We will work without hesitation to decide the campaign for the image of our country. And every person in the Netanyahu bloc who heard it yesterday and doesn't express deep shock at what he said, should know that from yesterday, he's on the wrong side of the campaign."
