Teapacks singer Kobi Oz joins breakaway political party
Oz says he isn’t seeking Knesset seat, calls MK Orly Levy-Abekasis a ‘hardworking and modest parliamentarian’
Noted musician, composer and singer Kobi Oz on Friday announced he was joining the new party started by an independent lawmaker who broke with the Yisrael Beytenu party in 2016.
Oz on his radio show said he does not intend to run for the Knesset, but was joining Orly Levy-Abekasis’s new party as a founding member.
“Orly is connected to the pain of people, and not the spoiled billionaires,” he said. “She needs to be a significant part of leadership.”
He described Levy-Abekasis “hardworking and a modest parliamentarian who has clean hands.”
“Its only natural that I would be one of the founders,” he added.
Oz, known for his flamboyant personal style, is the lead singer of Teapacks, a pop-rock band formed in the southern city of Sderot in 1988.
With 8 albums that have sold over 300,000 copies, Teapacks is regarded to be among the bands that most influenced Israeli musical identity.
Earlier this week, with talk of elections in the air as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is beset by legal woes and the coalition wrangles over legislation exempting ultra-Orthodox students from military service, Levy-Abekasis warned political leaders that her party would pose a threat.
“I recommend to the party leaders not to fear elections but to fear the new party that was founded,” Abekasis told a conference in Sderot.
Elections are currently scheduled for November 2019, but talk of a much-earlier vote has run rampant in recent days amid a simmering coalition crisis over ultra-Orthodox military conscription.
Levy-Abekasis announced in May 2016 that she would leave Yisrael Beytenu over its entry into the Likud-led government, saying that the party had abandoned its social platform during negotiations to enter the coalition. Her announcement came after reports that Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman had dropped demands to advance conversion reforms, civil unions and increased Israel Defense Forces enlistment for the ultra-Orthodox.
Levy-Abekasis has since been serving as an independent MK in the opposition, but has never officially tendered her resignation from the party. According to Knesset protocol, leaving a party prohibits an incumbent MK from running on any already existing list in the next elections.
