Avi Dichter
Avi DichterShmuel Adler

Deputy Defense Minister Avi Dichter warned on Friday that a government supported by the predominantly Arab Joint List party would be a “tragedy”.

“Gantz, Ashkenazi, Bogie (Ya’alon), Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser - meet Ayman ​​Odeh, your new political partner,” Dichter wrote in a post on Facebook.

“In 2007, Ayman Odeh signed a demand for a change in the definition of Israel - from a Jewish state to a democratic state based on national (not only civil) equality between Jews and Arabs!”

“They are conditioning the reconciliation between the Israeli Jewish people and the Palestinian Arab people, as defined by the signatories, on the Jews recognizing the right of return of the Arabs to Israel and working to implement it.”

“This means the end of the Zionist vision! The ideological basis for all this is the worldview of the signatories to the Haifa Declaration, including Ayman Odeh, in which they reject Zionism as a colonialist movement whose purpose is to conquer their homeland and make it a state for Jews,” added Dichter.

“Add to that the statement by Odeh on television that the leaders of the defense establishment who deal with counterterrorism such as Avi Dichter and, by implication, Gantz, Bogie and Ashkenazi - they are 'murderers' who killed Sheikh Yassin and many other terrorists - and here you have the character of your senior political partner. Woe to that shame. This is going to be a tragedy, a moral stain that you will be unable to erase. We will not allow that to happen!” he stressed.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)