Avi Maoz says he isn’t targeting LGBTQ individuals, claims media ‘demonizing’ him

Noam party leader Avi Maoz speaks at the Knesset plenum ahead of becoming a deputy minister in charge of a “Jewish identity” body. He claims recent reports about his party making lists of gay media professionals and “leftist” Justice Ministry staff are no more than an attempt by the media to “defame, demonize and shame” him.

The Yedioth Ahronoth daily last week published the lists prepared by the anti-LGBTQ party in 2019 as an internal document, sparking widespread condemnation.

Maoz claims he has nothing against individual LGBTQ people and is only acting against “LGBT-ism as an agenda and as a political movement,” as well as against left-wing ideology rather than individual leftists.

This, he says, is why he will soon vote in favor of openly gay Likud MK Amir Ohana’s appointment as Knesset speaker.

Maoz says the media is “purposefully and maliciously trying to portray me as someone who is fighting against certain individuals. As if Stalinist cleansings are about to start, or at least McCarthyist persecution. Of course, reality is the complete opposite.”

The lists “are merely lecture materials gathered from news websites to show the influence in various public systems,” he says.