Otzma Yehudit says it would have dropped out, but Netanyahu reneged on deal

Otzma Yehudit says it’s staying in the race after PM walked back agreement to raze Bedouin hamlet, amend law barring racists from Knesset

By JACOB MAGID, TOI

Left photo: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speach at the Likud party’s election rally in Ramat Gan on February 29, 2020. (Gili Yaari/Flash90) Right photo: Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the Otzma Yehudit party, holds a press conference in Jerusalem on February 26, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The far-right Otzma Yehudit party claimed Sunday that it had reached a deal with the Likud party according to which it would drop out of Monday’s election, but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked back the agreement.

Netanyahu has been pushing Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir to pull out of the election race for months, seeing his extremist faction as a spoiler that would siphon tens of thousands of votes away from the Likud and Yamina parties but ultimately not make it into the Knesset.

According to Otzma Yehudit, the far-reaching offer from Likud included making its No. 34 candidate, anti-immigration activist May Golan, an Otzma representative in the Knesset if a religious, right-wing coalition were to be established. It was not clear what the implications of this would be, nor how formalized the shift in her status.

Likud had also agreed to legislate an amendment to clause 7A in a quasi-constitutional Basic Law which, among other things, bars individuals who deny Israel’s existence as a Jewish democracy, or support terrorism against Israel, from running in elections. This condition was used by the Supreme Court to prevent three Otzma candidates — Michael Ben Ari, Benzi Gopstein and Baruch Marzel — from running in the past year.

West Bank hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar is seen on September 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

In addition, Otzma Yehudit claimed Likud had also agreed to raze the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar in six weeks and legislate the lowering of the electoral threshold, which currently stands at 3.25 percent of the vote.

“Surprisingly, this morning, Likud officials updated [us] that the prime minister had withdrawn from the agreement,” the far-right party said.

The party’s chairman, Itamar Ben Gvir, said in a statement that “Netanyahu is again thwarting [the possibility of] a 61-MK right-wing coalition and seems to be more interested in a unity government with Gantz.”

He added that given Netanyahu’s unwillingness to commit to right-wing policies, Otzma Yehudit has no choice but to continue its candidacy until the finish line.

Responding to the Otzma Yehudit revelation, Likud said there were “legal difficulties” with the deal initially reached but that it was working to solve them before Monday’s election.

The Saturday night negotiations between Likud and Otzma Yehudit came three days after Ben Gvir announced for the first time that he would be willing to drop out of the race for the Knesset while presenting a list of far-reaching demands.

Ben Gvir’s demands included measures, such as canceling the Oslo accords and razing Khan al-Ahmar within days, that would be impossible for any Israeli leader to commit to, let alone carry out.

Polls ahead of the March 2 election have shown Otzma Yehudit getting around 1% of the vote, well below the threshold needed to enter the Knesset.

Despite its extremist views, Otzma Yehudit drew over 80,000 votes in September’s elections, which would have equaled about two Knesset seats had the threshold to enter parliament been lower.

Ben Gvir has claimed that overtures for him to drop out included promises of tempting jobs in influential bodies, ministerial positions, an ambassadorship and even money, all of which he rejected.

Netanyahu was heavily criticized at home and abroad in February 2019 after engineering a deal for Otzma Yehudit to join two other right-wing factions, a pact that almost saw Ben Gvir enter the Knesset in the elections in April of that year.

The party is made up of followers of late rabbi Meir Kahane. It supports encouraging emigration of non-Jews from Israel and expelling Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who refuse to declare loyalty to Israel and accept diminished status in an expanded Jewish state whose sovereignty extends throughout the West Bank.

Before the September elections, and after failing to convince leaders of the right-wing Yamina party to include Otzma Yehudit in their alliance, Netanyahu waged an aggressive campaign against Otzma.