In scathing statement, Bennett rejects union with Otzma Yehudit

In a blunt, uncompromising statement, the New Right party’s chairman and current defense minister Naftali Bennett refuses to unite his party with the extremist Otzma Yehudit faction, citing its support for the perpetrator of the 1994 massacre of Muslim worshipers in Hebron, Baruch Goldstein.

Bennett rejects mounting pressure by Likud and others on the right to include Otzma’s head, Itamar Ben Gvir, on his Knesset slate, noting that Ben Gvir famously keeps a photograph of Goldstein hanging in his living room.

“As the chairman of the New Right party now running for Knesset, and as a former education minister of the State of Israel, I won’t include on my slate someone who keeps a photograph in his living room of a man who murdered 29 innocent people,” Bennett says.

“That’s so self-evident that I’m amazed I’m being asked to explain it at all.

“Imagine a member of the US Congress hanging a photograph in his home of someone who murdered dozens of Jews at prayer. Does that seem reasonable to you?

“I don’t care how much you pressure me. I can’t even consider this. It won’t happen. This is my final decision.”

He also lashes Otzma Yehudit’s support for the “price tag” terror attacks against Arabs, and for the “hilltop youth” violence targeting Palestinians and IDF soldiers.

“Instead of building, they break. Instead of repairing, they riot. This is an ideology of deep disdain for the State of Israel and its institutions,” he says of the party. “We didn’t return from the exile to live as wild, lawless militias. That’s not right-wing, it’s anarchy.”

He then tells Likud to put its money where its mouth is.

“Likud’s demand that I put Ben Gvir on the slate I’m leading is inappropriate. Likud friends — if you want him so much, put him on your slate!”

Wednesday at midnight is the deadline to file each party’s final slate for the March 2 election.