During the Q&A session of an election panel discussion at the Ono Academic College, Naftali Bennett, head of the Bayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, was ambushed by the head of the college’s Student Union, who demanded that Bennett sign a statement that he [Bennett] would not refuse orders to expel Jews from their homes.
Bennett had set off a storm when he answered on Nissim Mishal’s show that he would be personally incapable of following an order to uproot a Jew, or an Arab, from their home. Following that statement, and the subsequent attacks from the Likud party, Bennett’s party spiked upwards in the polls.
At first Bennett tried to sidestep the ambush a number of times, including answering that the whole question is hypothetical.
But holding the paper in hand, which he demanded Bennett sign, the Student Union head refused to back down, at which point Bennett got up and said, “I will not be pressured or threatened.”
Bennett walked out of the panel, but not before taking one final parting shot when he announced, “Every single Israeli party must sign a statement that they won’t expel Jews from their homes.”
And upon hearing that, the audience broke out in loud applause.
Can we say “Kol HaKavod”?
