CD (Portland) — The agreement establishing the most rightwing government in Israel’s history now contains a provision that will lift a ban on parliamentary candidates who incite racism—an offense for which the incoming national security minister was once convicted.

The rightwing Likud party led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the even more extreme Jewish Power party agreed this week to revoke Clause 7A of the Basic Law on the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. According to this provision, candidates can be disqualified from running to become lawmakers based on three grounds: “negation of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”; “support for an armed struggle by a hostile state or terrorist organization against the state of Israel”; and “incitement to racism.”

The anti-racism clause was introduced by the Knesset in 1985 and was used to block the openly racist Kach party, then led by extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, from returning to parliament.

However, Likud and Jewish Power (which is associated with the Kahanist movement) have now agreed to strike the “incitement to racism” part of the clause, thus formally endorsing candidates who promote racism to serve in the nation’s highest legislative body.

Critics contend that even before this formal change in the law, the anti-racism clause had been routinely violated by Israeli legislators.

Incoming Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of Jewish Power, was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism as well as supporting a terrorist organization after he advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, who is set to be appointed the de facto prime minister of the occupied West Bank, declared to Arab lawmakers last year that “you’re here by mistake. It’s a mistake that [David] Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.”

The lifting of the racism ban is also related to the rise of the Lehava, a Jewish supremacist organization with an anti-miscegenation focus, denouncing marriages between Jews and non-Jews. It strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, objecting to most personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews. It is also opposed to the Christian presence in Israel. Through the Kahanist movement and membership overlaps, Lehava and the Jewish Power party share a close relationship.

Orly Erez Likhovski, director of the Israel Religious Action Center, expressed her dismay about the terms of rightwing coalition agreement on Twitter, stating, “The heart burns and the throat chokes at the reading of the coalition agreement… It is the going-out-of-business sale for the Jewish and democratic state, throwing away everything that is important to us. We will fight against this government, which has never been this bad before.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid seems to agree, declaring in his farewell address that “the government being formed here is dangerous, extremist, irresponsible. This will end badly… Netanyahu is weak, and his partners have created the most extreme government in the nation’s history.”

Netanyahu himself insists that he will remain in control of the incoming government. “They are joining me. I’m not joining them,” Netanyahu declared. “I’ll have two hands firmly on the steering wheel. I won’t let anybody… deny our Arab citizens their rights or anything like that. It just won’t happen, and the test of time will prove that.”

Originally published at Common Dreams. Republished by cc by-sa 3.0. Edits for style and content.

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