JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came under mounting criticism Thursday for making a pact with an extreme far-right political party, while his two main rivals in upcoming elections pledged to run on a joint ticket out of “national responsibility.”
Former army chief of staff and political newcomer Benny Gantz and Netanyahu’s longtime opponent, Yair Lapid, who have been polling in second and third place respectively, announced that they would join forces to run on a joint party list, ramping up pressure on the incumbent leader as he battles corruption allegations.
The announcement came just hours after Netanyahu’s Likud party said it had succeeded in a surprising push to get three right-wing factions to join forces in a move that Netanyahu hopes will ensure he can form a coalition in the next government.
Controversially, one of those parties is Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, made up of followers of Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist American Israeli rabbi. Israeli commentators and American Jewish groups immediately decried the move, saying the faction was clearly an offshoot of Kahane’s Kach party, a group that is designated a terrorist organization by the State Department and banned in Israel.
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It was outlawed in Israel in 1994 after one of the party’s supporters, Baruch Goldstein, fatally shot 29 Palestinians as they prayed at a mosque in Hebron. The group had advocated banning mixed relationships and expelling non-Jews from Israel.
The Jewish American magazine Forward compared the deal to striking an agreement with Israel’s equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the reform Jewish movement, tweeted that it was “morally outrageous” to imagine that those who had followed Kahane could be welcomed into Netanyahu’s political circle. “Bolstering one’s political strength with those who profess racist views should be unthinkable,” he said.
However, Netanyahu argued that right-wing votes should not be “wasted” and that the three groups should merge to pass the minimum threshold for seats in the Knesset, or parliament, making them potential coalition partners.
Likud agreed to reserve the 28th spot on its parliamentary list for the Jewish Home party and grant it two cabinet ministries in a future government if it merged with Jewish Power and another right-wing faction, National Union.
The merger was so important to Netanyahu that he canceled a visit to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday, meeting instead with former military chief rabbi Rafi Peretz, head of Jewish Home, the largest of the three right-wing factions. There had been resistance among members of Jewish Home and National Union against joining up with Jewish Power, seen by some in the right-wing as the extreme fringe.
“Netanyahu lowered all of us not only below the bottom red line, but also set a new bar for low,” Ben-Dror Yemini wrote in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “There is only one explanation for Netanyahu’s odd behavior: he is panicking.” He added that bringing in the Kahanists will be “a gift greater than gold to Israel-haters” and deepen the rift between American Jews and Israel.
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The prime minister is also under pressure ahead of an announcement by Israel’s attorney general on whether to indict Netanyahu after police recommended charging him in connection with three corruption cases. Netanyahu is willing to “trample” the national interest for a small gain, Yemini wrote.
Gantz said Netanyahu has “lost touch with Zionism and his dignity.” Also joining Gantz’s bloc on Thursday was Gabi Ashkenazi, another retired chief of staff, bringing the total in the party who have formerly served in the position to three. Moshe “Bogey” Yaalon, a former army chief and defense minister, joined Gantz last month.
“The new ruling party will bring forth a cadre of security and social leaders to ensure Israel’s security and to reconnect its people and heal the divide within Israeli society,” the party said in a statement.
A poll by the Israeli website Walla on Wednesday predicted that a merger between Lapid and Gantz would bring them virtually neck-and-neck with Netanyahu, who it projected would win 33 percent of the vote.
In their statement, issued Thursday morning just hours before a deadline to declare party lists for the April 9 election, Gantz and Lapid said they had agreed on a rotation for the prime minister’s post. If they win, Gantz would serve as prime minister for the first 2 ½ years and Lapid would assume the post afterward.
Netanyahu has presented the choice for voters as a simple one between a weak leftist government that would sell out Israeli interests and a strong right-wing one headed by him.
A Likud statement immediately attacked the merger, calling it a left-wing government, even though Yaalon is considered further right on the political spectrum than Netanyahu, as are other candidates on Gantz’s list.
“The choice is clear,” said the Likud statement. “Either Lapid-Ganz’s left-wing government with the support of a block of Arab parties, or a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu.”
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