Dear Editor:

I am a proud and ardent Zionist and have dedicated much of my adult life to serving these ideals and advancing these goals because I believe that ultimately this will better serve ALL of Israel’s citizenry, as well as support better relations between Israel and her neighbors.

The recent decision by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to embrace the racist Otzma Yehudit party along with National Union and the Jewish Home Party is as reprehensible as it is condemnable.

If they succeed, this will bring into the Knesset, the inheritors of a racist ideology that was outlawed in Israel and condemned by a growing number of important Jewish organizations in Israel and the U.S. including no less than the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

This kind of thinking has no place in civil society and embracing it in order to win an election is neither an acceptable excuse nor a goal that will serve the democratic and Jewish ideals that are the TRUE underpinnings of the Jewish nationality enterprise.

These individuals must be vocally opposed at every corner and if Bibi still insists on partnering with these so called “religious parties” (imposters more accurately), and if the Israeli Election Commission permits them to run, then they and the PM must likewise be opposed vociferously and actively for the sake of Am Israel.

Racism, hatred, homophobia and support for intimidation activities against Palestinians are NOT Jewish ideals and while they are being advanced by men who look religious on the outside, their dark hearts and sick and twisted ideologies are in direct contrast with the same Torah they claim to represent. They and their supporters like the PM himself must be stopped by the only means available to a civil society... the ballot box.

Aaron Weil

Executive Director & CEO Central Florida Hillel