Netanyahu Makes a Big Promise to All Israelis
But will it be enough to calm his detractors and put an end to the hysteria of the Left?
Shabbat electricity
Left-wing and centrist politicians are sounding the alarm with all their might. The end of the State of Israel as we know it is upon us, they insist. The incoming government led by Benjamin Netanyahu will transform the Jewish state into something akin to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a nation ruled by religious law.
Nonsense, says Netanyahu.
“Everyone will live in accordance with their own faith. This will not become a nation of religious law. It will be a country in which we tend to all citizens of Israel, without exception,” he told the Knesset on Tuesday.
Netanyahu’s Likud will partner with three religious factions to form the next ruling coalition: The ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), and the nationalist Religious Zionism.
Negotiations between Likud and UTJ this week got secular Israelis worried that rabbinical authorities would be granted expanded powers under the new government. For instance, UTJ demanded that Israeli power plants shut down for Shabbat. That led to outlandish assertions by secular politicians and media that Israelis would have to live without electricity on the weekend.
“I want to reassure you: there is and will be electricity on the Sabbath,” Netanyahu fired back. “We will maintain the status quo.”
But Bibi did stress that Likud and its partners were “elected to lead in our way, the way of the nationalist-right and the way of the liberal-right, and that’s what we’ll do.”
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