Right-wing parties trade allegations of dirty deeds

Two right-wing parties looking for votes took aim at each other Tuesday, each alleging foul play by the other at a voting station in Yad Binyamin in central Israel.

The far-right Otzma Leyisrael party accused Jewish Home activists of removing voting slips from a booth in the town Tuesday morning

The party filed an urgent petition with Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Elyakim Rubinstein requesting that he close the ballot box.

Jewish Home activists shot back that Otzma Leyisrael’s people were engaging in “provocations,” Israel National News reported.

The two parties, ideological brethren on the right side of the political spectrum, have been at odds since Otzma Leyisrael was established in November.

A source from Otzma Leyisrael was quoted by Ynet as saying, “We hope that this was a local initiative, and not Jewish Home party policy.”

[mappress mapid=”3384″]

Otzma Leyisrael is headed by Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari, both former National Union MKs who bolted the party when it merged with Jewish Home last year. Both Eldad and Ben Ari opposed the merger, fearing it would compromise their ideological positions, which lie far to the right of Jewish Home’s base.

They subsequently established their new party with right-wing activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir, all former followers of late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Kahane was the head of the Kach political party, which was founded in the early 1970s and entered the Knesset in 1984. The party was barred from participating in the 1988 elections when the Central Elections Committee ruled that the Kach party platform incited racism.

Stuart Winer contributed to this report.