New Lawmaker Challenges Netanyahu to Fulfill Ezekiel’s Prophecy
The Noam Party, which has drawn quite a bit of fire for its pro-family/anti-LGBT platform, announced on Thursday that it will support Prime Minister Netanyahu to form the next government while presenting its list of demands. The party only won a single seat in the Knesset, but with no side winning any clear majority, that one seat wields an outsized influence. As part of the Religious Zionist alliance formed with Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich’s National Union, the alliance garnered a total of six seats, this influence is essential if Netanyahu hopes to garner the 61 necessary seats for a majority coalition.
“This Monday, we will recommend to the president, together with the Religious Zionist Party List, that the task of forming a government be entrusted to Benjamin Netanyahu,” the party said in a statement.
During coalition talks, the statement continued, the party would demand a government decision obligating all state institutions to act in accordance with Israel’s Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.
To that end, the party would demand the establishment of a new government directorate, called “Magen Ha’am” (“Shield of the Nation”), that would be tasked with “detecting and neutralizing foreign influences” on the state. The proposed directorate would be similar to the National Housing Directorate, the implementation arm of the ministerial committee on planning, construction, land, and housing, aka the Housing Cabinet, according to the statement.
Noam presented a list of demands that would limit foreign influences on Israel:
“We will demand the establishment of a government center to detect and neutralize foreign influences on the State of Israel,” Noam chairman Avi Maoz announced in a statement on Friday. He said that the purpose would be to “prevent foreign anti-Israel elements from penetrating the public arena in the State of Israel and from affecting consciousness, changing values and harming national resilience”.
The party stated the center would be called “Magen Ha’Am” (shield the nation). The chairman of Noam, Avi Maoz, who will be sworn in as a Knesset member next week, stated that they will recommend to President Rivlin to entrust the task of forming a government to Netanyahu.
This particular agenda is remarkable for echoing Biblical prophecy:
As I see them from the mountain tops, Gaze on them from the heights, There is a people that dwells apart, Not reckoned among the nations, Numbers 23:9
Thus said Hashem: Let no alien, uncircumcised in spirit and flesh, enter My Sanctuary—no alien whatsoever among the people of Yisrael. Ezekiel 44:9
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the medieval Biblical commentator known by the acronym Rashi, explained that Balaam’s vision as described in Numbers referred to Israel, the nation, maintaining its unique traditions and laws. It is, in fact, prohibited for Jews to have courts and governments based on non-Torah principles. Though there are leniencies that permit doing so in foreign countries under rabbinic supervision (a provision known as dina d’malchuta), this provision does not apply to Jews living in Israel.
In that regard, Noam’s Magen Ha’Am would reinstate a framework of governance and justice that sets Israel apart as uniquely serving Hashem, the result of which is described in the next verse.
Who can count the dust of Yaakov, Number the dust-cloud of Yisrael? May I die the death of the upright, May my fate be like theirs! Numbers 23:10
Maoz added in a statement that “Noam will also work to restore the Jewish character to our country that has eroded in recent years.”This will be practically accomplished by stopping government branches from operating on Shabbat, preserving Jewish status by putting the conversion process entirely under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate. Noam stated that they will work for a government decision requiring the Defense establishment to restore the value of victory as a central value of the IDF.
The party became the target for left-wing ire last year when they released a video presenting their anti-homosexuality platform under the slogan, “An entire country is going through conversion therapy. The time has come to stop it.”
In the video, a mother, father, and son drive to vote on election day, as the car radio announces that the Western Wall will be closed to visitors due to a gay pride parade that will take place there. The mother writes on her voting slip: “Let my son marry a woman,” while the father writes, “Let my grandson be Jewish.”
“Noam: A Normal People in Our Own Land,” the video concludes. The video was removed by YouTube for violating its terms of use.
Walking into the voting booth room, the family continues to be hit with LGBT and Reform imagery until they reach the booth itself.
In addition, the party would work to “restore the country’s Jewish character,” by stopping government projects running on Shabbat, ensuring that conversion remained under the sole authority of the Chief Rabbinate and more, said the statement.
Furthermore, the party will demand the amendment of Government Resolution 2331, which requires state institutions to adhere to United Nations Resolution 1325, “and will work for a government decision that obliges the defense establishment to restore victory as a central IDF value, in command training and with regard to military and manpower considerations.”
Resolution 1325, passed in October 2000, calls on U.N. member states to “ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict.”
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to meet on Monday with every faction elected to the Knesset, after which he will entrust the task of forming a government to one of the representatives.
The party will also demand the amendment of Government Resolution 2331, which requires state institutions to adhere to United Nations Resolution 1325. Passed in October 2000, Resolution 1325 calls on U.N. member states to “ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict.”
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