Bennett apologizes for campaign video linking MK to Hamas

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett apologizes for a 2015 campaign video that appeared to suggest that philosophy professor Yossi Yonah — now a Zionist Union lawmaker — was sympathetic to the Hamas terrorist group.

“It was not justified and it was not right,” says Bennett to Yonah in the Knesset, three years later.

The 2015 clip starts with an image of the Hamas logo and menacing music. Then a quote appears: “There’s no difference between the Jewish Holocaust Day and the Palestinian Nakba.” The line, written in broken Hebrew, suggesting it was written by Arabs, refers to the “catastrophe” that for Palestinians is Israel’s creation in 1948.

Images of the Holocaust and violent Palestinian uprisings emerge, followed by more controversial statements, such as “Respect for Zionist soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories” and “As long as there is occupation there will be terror,” mixed with footage of Palestinian protests.

At the end of the one-minute clip, it says: “This is not Hamas! This is Yossi Yonah [from] the Labor party headed by [Isaac] Boujie [Herzog].”

Yonah says he accepts Bennett’s apology.

Read more about the campaign video here.