Blue and White MK Ram Ben Barak pushes back against racism accusations for saying the difference between his party and the ruling Likud was “black and white.”
At a cultural event yesterday, Barak contrasted Blue and White with Likud, which he said is “against equality, clearly differentiates between Jews and Arabs… it harms the courts.”
“You want to call this right and left? Call it right and left. You want to call it black and white? Call it black and white. They’re black and we’re white,” Ben Barak said.
Hitting back at Ben Barak, Likud accuses him of using “racist slurs,” lumping together his comments with past criticism of Likud voters that was seen as racially charged.
“We will bring our voices to the ballot box and overcome this patronizing tone,” the party says in a statement.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who heads the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party Shas, calls on Blue and White to denounce the comments and says Ben Barak should “be ashamed.”
Ben Barak dismisses the criticism as “nonsense.”
“The intention was darkness and light, black and white, liberal and fascist. Anything else is simply not true. And it’s a pity to take it there,” he writes on Twitter.
Blue and White MK Ram Ben Barak speaks at a cultural event in the central town of Shoham on August 24, 2019. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90 )
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