Anti-miscegenation activist calls out Likud MK over daughter dating Arab Israeli

The head of a far-right anti-coexistence organization sent an open letter to a prominent Likud lawmaker on Tuesday, urging him to break up his daughter’s relationship with an Arab Israeli.

The letter from Lehava head Bentzi Gopstein came less than a day after the Maariv daily reported that MK Gideon Sa’ar’s daughter Alona is dating actor Amir Khoury of the hit Israeli show “Fauda.”

“This is not a matter of racism, God forbid, but of the existence of the Jewish people,” Gopstein wrote. “Sometimes it happens that in the name of love there are those who forget where they came from and where they are going. It seems to them that [Jews] are a people like all the nations, and love is blind and above all.”

Gopstein goes on to tell Sa’ar that it is his responsibility as a Jewish father to “lovingly” remind his daughter about her heritage and “the preservation of the Jewish people.”

Amir Khoury (YouTube screenshot)

The Lehava head concludes the letter by offering to schedule a meeting for the Likud lawmaker with “professionals” in his anti-assimilation organization who have experience addressing such relationships.

Sa’ar declined The Times of Israel’s request for comment on the letter. Hours later, he tweeted, “My beloved daughter Alona is a private citizen. Stay out of her personal matters.”

Gopstein is a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which united with the Jewish Home and National Union ahead of last month’s elections to form the Union of Right-Wing Parties. The merger was orchestrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to salvage votes for the right-wing bloc, which he said would have been wasted had the hardline parties run on their own and not crossed the electoral threshold.

Lehava opposes intermarriage and the assimilation of Jews and LGBT rights and tries to stifle any public activity by non-Jews in Israel. Lawmakers across the political spectrum have tried to designate it as a terrorist group.