Far-right party leader: Arabs are citizens of Israel ‘for now at least’

Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich tells the Kan public broadcaster that Arabs are citizens of Israel, “for now at least.”

Smotrich’s far-right party is a part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right wing-religious bloc. His refusal to join a right-wing minority government propped up by the Islamist Ra’am party is blocking one of Netanyahu’s few potential routes to forming a coalition.

“Some of our enemies are still sitting in the Knesset and there are those who think it is possible to rely on them for assembling a government. Open your eyes and remove this stupidity from the agenda,” Smotrich says at a faction meeting, apparently referring to Ra’am.

Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich speaks during a Knesset faction meeting on April 26, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

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