Yemina party wasting no time blasting Netanyahu from right

Yemina sent a letter to right-wing Knesset members calling on them to oppose the unity government so long as annexation doesn’t appear in the bylaws.

By David Isaac, World Israel News 

The Yemina party wasted no time in criticizing the Netanyahu-Gantz unity government from the Right side of the political map.

On Thursday, Arutz 7 reports that Yemina sent a letter targeting right-wing members of the Likud party and those of two of its ally parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, which appeal to the ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, populations.

The communiqué urged them to oppose the government’s swearing-in, which is to take place Thursday evening, as long as the application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria doesn’t appear in the bylaws of the new government.

“The bylaws of the government in which you will be required to vote your confidence today lack the pledge to apply sovereignty to settling in Judea and Samaria. This is one of Netanyahu’s key election promises and the banner he proudly carried over the past year,” the letter said.

It was signed by Yemina leader Naftali Bennett and members of the faction, Ayelet Shaked, Betzalel Smotrich, Matan Kahane and Ofir Sofer.

“Not only that, but even developing settlement in Judea and Samaria doesn’t appear in the bylaws, but only developing the Negev, Galilee, periphery, and ‘the rest of the country,'” the letter continues.

“We find it difficult to believe that you would vote confidence in a government that is unable to enunciate the explicit words ‘Judea and Samaria’ and hide them shamefully behind the words ‘the rest of the country,'” Yemina said.

“We urge you to demand that the Prime Minister add sovereignty and developing settlement in Judea and Samaria to the government’s bylaws before expressing your confidence in it, otherwise it won’t be a unity government but a leftist government led by Netanyahu,” the letter said.

After up-and-down talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bennett broke down for the final time on Wednesday, the Yemina faction announced it would head to the opposition.

It lost one member of its faction, Rabbi Rafi Peretz, whom Netanyahu convinced to split from Yemina and join the government.

Yemina will hold five seats with Peretz’s departure. Mainly a religious-Zionist party, it boasts some secular members, most prominent among them former Justice Minister Shaked.

“Our eight years in the Netanyahu government are over today,” Bennett said in a post on Thursday.

“The prime minister chose to get rid of Yemina, which was his national backbone, and chose the opposite, easier path. A way that is not Right. A road without sovereignty, without governance, without national standing. I have never voted against Netanyahu in the Knesset. I have never suggested another candidate for establishing a government.”