Likud minister prays for ‘father of the nation’ Netanyahu during pro-overhaul rally

Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distel Atbaryan calls Netanyahu “the father of the nation and the leader of the Jewish people,” in her speech to a right-wing rally in Tel Aviv earlier tonight, in which she also says that the judicial overhaul is “the war of independence” of right-wing populations allegedly disenfranchised by the left.

Distel Atbaryan says that her disenfranchised constituents are from the so-called periphery, shorthand for impoverished municipalities, many of them predominantly-Sephardic, outside the country’s heavily-populated and relatively affluent center.

גם אבא רחמים הגיע להפגנת הימין הערב. ???????? pic.twitter.com/Ff2lvDrfzD

— Galit Distel Atbaryan – גלית דיסטל אטבריאן (@GalitDistel) July 23, 2023

Unusually, Distel Atbaryan, a writer-turned-journalist whom Netanyahu personally recruited to Likud in recent years, kicks off her speech with a prayer for the health of Netanyahu. He is in hospital, having had a pacemaker installed, following arrhythmia last week, and is due to be discharged tomorrow.

“I want to start with a little prayer: I will say it and you say amen: May the Lord give all necessary strengths to the father of the nation and the leader of the Jewish People, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to lead us through this difficult time, amen,” says Distel Atbaryan, who often attributes these accolades to Netanyahu.

In her speech, Distel Atbaryan says she speaks for “12-, 13- and 14-year-old girls from Yerucham or Sderot who dream of becoming Supreme Court justices” and “combat soldier in Givati or Golani [IDF brigades], and the tank crew member in the armored corps” — mentioning two heavily right-wing municipalities in southern Israel with a sizeable Sephardic population, as well as combat army units with relatively limited prestige.

In her speech, Distel Atbaryan repeatedly mentions socio-economic and ethnic differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, some of whom identify as an underlayer of the ideological divide separating opponents of the overhaul from its supporters.

“You are not guests in this country, this country belongs to you,” she says of her constituents. “You will no longer be erased. And this is your war of independence,” she says, using the term for the bloody 1948 conflict that ended with a sovereign Jewish state and more than 6,000 Jewish casualties. “Independence from the shackles of attorney generals who persecute your elected officials. Independence from judges who appoint themselves and trample ruthlessly over your rights,” Distel Atbaryan adds.