Noam, part of the Religious Zionism slate, lists string of conditions – which we could easily call racist – for joining Bibi’s government, including halting state-run projects on Shabbat, upholding Jewish nation-state law and downgrading gender equality and LGBT+ rights.
Israel recently faced new elections but unfortunately the political panorama did not change that much as Netanyahu still remains in charge as PM and his dirty games of power appear to have no end.
Lately, the coalition with the religious-extremist and Zionist party Noam brought to light some very dangerous requests that this party made to Netanyahu in order to adhere to his political majority and plans of power of the country.
The party NOAM demanded that “a government edict that requires government bodies to act in accordance with the principles of the Nation-State Law.” (Nation-State was created in 2018 and defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, strongly damaging the other minorities living in the country).
NOAM party stated also: “For the purpose of implementing this decision, Noam will demand the establishment of a new government office called ‘Defense of the Nation’: the office for detecting and neutralizing foreign influences in the State of Israel with the aim to prevent foreign, anti-Israel elements from infiltrating the public systems in the State of Israel and influencing the consciousness, changing values and harming national resilience.”
LGBT+ rights and gender equality are also – unluckily – under attack by NOAM.
The party is willing to “fix,” and correct a 2014 law on gender equality: “the government must work to promote gender equality in the civil service and “instill the value of gender equality through information and guidance.” This law also requires the government to work to “strengthen the safety of women in the public sphere and prevent violence against them.”
As stated on The Times of Israel: “hinting at preventing women from serving in the IDF (the national army), the party said it would demand a government edict that requires the defense establishment to restore the value of victory as a central value of the IDF.”
NOAM party – that accused the LGBT+ community of forcing their “agenda” on the society – has been hardly fighting against LGBT+ rights since 2019, producing a series of provocative billboards – present on all motorways in Israel – together with videos where their slogans were “Israel chooses to be normal”, as they strongly believe that the Israeli society is based on a heteronormative family structure.
What is even scarier is that they have also compared the LGBT+ community and the Reform Jews to the Nazis: in 2019 they launched a video campaign where Reform Jews and LGBT+ activists were compared to Nazis and to Palestinian suicide bombers (kamikaze), trying to convince the audience that “they want to destroy us”.
If Israeli left parties and LGBT+ activists do not quickly act to stop NOAM party and their obsolete and racist ideas, the country risks to fall in the darkness. We truly believe this can be avoided, and Israeli society can show once again their strength and resilience, but first of all their willing of an inclusive nation for everybody!
