Inside Israel Today: The Ultra-Orthodox's Anglo Candidate

the green line was the air fifty years ago the green line is maybe a nice piece of paper to us but it doesn't really mean anything for a regular general Israeli today is about the build of people of Israel you're listening to inside Israel today with your Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today on the land of israel network on the land of israel comm where we are only two weeks before the exciting election that will be happening over here in israel ladies and gentlemen you've been having a lot of fun covering this election here on inside israel today and just live in it over here watching our democratic process in action and this election has been about a lot of different things this election has been about corruption this election has been about mistakes made about submarines about cell phones for a few days anyway it looked like this election would be about the legalization of cannabis out of all things and then yesterday morning 5:20 in the morning israel got a terrible wake-up call with a direct hit of a missile on the home in the hardest community to find in and north of far sabah eighty kilometers away from gaza Miche merritt a little itty-bitty place i i've never been there and ninety something percent of israelis I've never been there you don't even see a sign for it on the highway so for this little itty bitty place to make the news whether the missile was fired on purpose or not fired on purpose this changes everything Netanyahu had the shortness trip to the United States and to come back and be in charge of the retaliation that there will be so far what there's been has been minimal in part because they did say it was a mistake but also in part because Netanyahu is not here and he's the prime minister offense minister and either the Prime Minister his defense minister has to sign on doing something and so as we speak he's still on his way back and anything can happen ladies and gentlemen these two weeks could be two weeks where the security situation dominates the headlines Netanyahu is a very fine line to be walking on right now because on the one hand he can't be perceived as weak he has every politician who's not only could across the political spectrum accusing him of not being hard enough on Hamas that includes the left and we've got unlike past elections got three Chiefs of Staff the IDF running against him who can all say we can do it better than him but be clean and on the other hand Netanyahu also has to not go too far because if you let things escalate they retaliate too and that results in people on our side being killed and the last thing a prime minister needs is Israelis killed ahead of an election let's not forget that's how he now came to power in the first place in 1996 against Shimon Peres went and pulled buses were blowing up in Tel Aviv that made people say well oh I want something different and this election has something different now that's something different has been against and he also spacing tests right now as I wrote in today's Jerusalem Post everyone was looking ahead to that speech at AIPAC and he put on a show like Netanyahu can and the answer is absolutely not no one can be BB BB is a show man BB he speaks better than mother tongue English BB makes fun of my English when I interview him he says my English is better than yours it's just not fair okay no you can't compete with him but the truth is this speech that Ganz gave at the AIPAC policy conference was very nice and he spoke English fine and you know I'd poop takeoff marks here and there for pronouncing things incorrectly and saying things in this singular instead of plural and plural instead of singular okay he's not a native English speaker people get it but he came across expressed everything he wanted to say he hid all the check marks and on what you're supposed to say when you're speaking to American Jews told even a couple jokes appeared to be charming and to have charisma and even grace he walked around and it didn't look like he was speaking from a teleprompter maybe he was it's okay and I came across as as comfortable which was interesting because you would expect him to be uncomfortable speaking before 18,000 people in a foreign language and then five hours later Benny Ganz after passing that test goes and fails another one when he gave an interview to channel 2 regular very high rated nightly news in Israel and it was the same yoni levy anchorwoman who interviewed him the week before and asked him no tough questions here she asked only tough questions ladies and gentlemen I give a lot of interviews myself about Israel to the foreign press if you ask me the same question twice it's a little annoying but I can do it if you ask me the same question three times it's a challenge but I can do it if you ask me the same question four times it's really really hard and I don't know if I can do it you asked me the same question a fifth time in a row it's impossible that's what happened yesterday to bet against you neat levy asked him how would your policies on the Gaza situation be different than it said yeah and the first time she asked him he already didn't have an answer and she hammered in hammered and asked again and asked again and asked again I'm telling you ladies and gentlemen ask yourself any question five times you don't have five different answers huh what did you eat for lunch how do you feel what's the weather like you can't answer that question five times now how about a tough question that you failed at the first time now ask it four more times he looked horrible he was drowning out there and then 20 minutes later he gave an interview to the other channel the second highest rated show to the channel 13 News and there and their anchor woman was Talia Moreno who he called tomorrow because she's the regular anchor tomorrow tomorrow was still I was stationed in the where the rocket was so she wasn't there in the studio and so he already got the name wrong okay that that's a little faux pas you can you can get over that she asked him about a headline the day before that was on her newscast the day before which said that in a private conversation Gans was making fun of minutes in Yahoo and said if the man could have me killed he would now that's a pretty controversial thing to say in any election right in any country if my opponent could have me killed he would have an explanation because you're interviewing on the same network that reported that you said that the day before obviously you need to explain that he wasn't ready ladies and gentlemen to answer the obvious question that he knows he's going to be asked and Tally Ho I think was upset about being called tomorrow she asked it again when she didn't like his non answer and again and again and I'm thinking poor a guy I mean you could like him not like him as a human being like his policies not like his policies not understand what they are fine but he's a human being and you're watching the man drowning for the second time in half an hour and you just think have mercy on the fellow send the man a life preserver or something he's running for prime minister against a man who speaks beautifully and who although he didn't give an interview for four years to the mainstream Israeli media certainly knows how to handle media interviews that are tough and then Lee could put out a statement afterwards saying that if he can't handle the pressure of a media interview then then how is he gonna handle you wrong which was a point and it wouldn't surprise me if after those interviews Gant's ends up going down in the polls keep in mind the people of Israel did not watch the speech at AIPAC the people of Israel don't watch speeches in English at 3:30 in the afternoon Israel they watch the news at night and they had maybe 15 seconds of his speech at AIPAC and those two interviews that did him I'd like to think a lot of damage and we remember Isaac Herzog in the previous election the candidate against Netanyahu spoke beautifully most of the time but the Saturday night before the election he said a little mistake instead of saying he wanted to keep Jerusalem United he said he wanted to keep Netanyahu United okay that's a throwaway line that he screwed up anybody could do that why'd it happen the Saturday night before the election and no one has forgotten it he said it with Netanyahu in the same studio not in the same studio sitting next him but in it in a video on top of him looking much larger than him and that created a certain impression about him not being ready to be Prime Minister Netanyahu being larger than life and everybody being small compared to him and that might have happened again here but there's still two weeks left Netanyahu can still screw up the security situation could get out of control god forbid ganz could do things right anything can happen and that's the beauty of Israeli democracy stay with us cuz after the break we will get back to our meet the candidates series which is nearing its end ahead of the selection so stay tuned tune in for an exclusive interview with mayor of a frat Oded Revathy the first official representative from Judea and Samaria to speak at the AIPAC conference he said I don't agree with all that I don't come from the same political background but the way he presented the information the way he showed us reality is an important thing that should be on the stage in the main conference for the full interview check out rejuvenation with Yves Harrow on the land of israel network at the land of israel dot-com [Music] and we're back here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm we have been using this wonderful pulpit over here on the internet to introduce people around the world to the fascinating people who are running for Knesset here on April 9th I started this meet the candidate series all the way back two and a half months ago in January and when I started it I had no idea where I would go and who I would interview and I think in my humble opinion that it has been fascinating we started out with tehila Friedman from the acetate party which is since United with blue and white and she's about 40 she is 40th on the list and blue and white right now in a party getting uh 30-something seats in the polls and if you have what's called a Norwegian law implemented where all the ministers quit the Knesset then she would be in and we have the Likud's I was a Diana former general who's 42nd on the Likud list and without Norwegian law would be in the Knesset after April 9th we have merits the number 6 candidate on the list mijita Baruch Ron who is an immigrant from Ethiopia we spoke to she very well might be in the Knesset as well borrow from ours L we interviewed the shows called the view from all the way on the right he's from oats my you'd eat he was not put on the list in the end they decided to run Michael ben-ari and borrow and Itamar been veer and Michael ben-ari was since then prohibited from running by the Supreme Court and as a result of that the oats my you deed party that's running as part of the Union of right-wing parties says that they are demanding that borrow Mars lb appointed a minister so you have not heard the last of him and then we went to the left we went to the Labour Party were interviewed Yahya Fink who is the religious candidate running in labor he's 12th on the list and wants to change the way people see Judaism and then we had Carolyn Glick from the new right who is sixth on that list she is Neftali Bennett anti eletric heads recruit from The Jerusalem Post and she was the main speaker at a pro Trump rally in Jerusalem but here she was critical of the peace plan the Trump is supposed to be revealing some time after the Israeli election and then we interviewed history Latinos number four candidate Elia Mead our former diplomat we interviewed the number two candidates in or Leah levees party guess Cher David daddy Perlmutter who went from running a fifty billion dollar company and Intel to running for Knesset and then last week we spoke to Rooney drawer the advocate for men's rights who is number four on the ahout party list of Moshe Feiglin and so there aren't a lot of parties left that have a chance of making it into the Knesset one of them is Shas and I was told there's a brilliant guy he's seventh on the Shas list he has a law degree and he has a rabbinical degree and he has a business degree and he went to a program and received a certificate at Harvard he of course can do an interview in English I spoke to him this morning and ladies and gentlemen he chickened out he said I'm happy to give an interview in Hebrew but I will not be giving interview in English ahead of the election ladies and gentlemen we do not have Hebrew on the Land of Israel Network there are plenty of radio stations in Israel in Hebrew if you know Hebrew listen to them this is an English radio network and cowardice is not a good trait to have if you are running for Knesset so that makes me all the more impressed by who we are interviewing today the tenth candidate from ten different parties running in the April 9th election to be interviewed here and inside Israel today from the United Torah Judaism party which is an ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi party of a European acidic and non Hasidic ultra-orthodox Jews led by Aqil it's Minh and Moshe calf Gaffney in the Knesset so we have on the line it's clock pin Druze who is the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem the former mayor of Beit our elite and who is eighth on the list of United Torah Judaism which is getting seven seats in the polls but we have a mini Norwegian law where usually a minister or Deputy Minister quits which means if elections happen today then mister it's rabbi it's like pin Druce is in the Knesset thank you for coming here on inside Israel today thank you for having me so why are you running for Knesset first of all why am i running from cresset I'm been in the public service for the last 25 years and are you served in the municipality for 25 years and I think that I could really at least the things that I did until now I could be doing it better in the national level where were you born I was born in Jerusalem what is your American connection or you speak English a little bit better than the other candidates and my parents they're American that means I have an American citizenship but I grew up in Jerusalem was born in Jerusalem and there and most of my life were between Jerusalem and baked I really tell our listeners about me turkeys are most of the whole life tell our listeners about Beit Arleta it doesn't make the headlines very often McCarley to the city south of Jerusalem today a leaders 6070 thousand people living there I moved in there with those 30 families I left when there was 40,000 people living here and after 17 years those here's the fasting growing city and in Israel and it's an orthodox city in general and very successful beautiful city nice city clean neat but it so it's over the Green Line people don't realize how many ultra-orthodox are settlers yeah after this dear first of all over the Green Line is it's true but mean the Green Line was there fifty years ago so that people don't really pay attention today where the Green Line is people don't really know where the Green Line is the Green Line is maybe a nice piece of paper in the UN but it doesn't really mean anything for a regular general Israeli and there today if you were un settlers is about the million people of Israel so I just think it's something unique it's the baby when we started it looked like a mountain outside over there but today it's it's in Greater Jerusalem and it's part of the area of Jerusalem and it's a great city people don't realize that the amount of Jews living over the Green Line over the pre 67 border is around the same population as Denver as Seattle as Washington DC as big cities in the United States about 15 percent of the Israeli Jewish population at least lives over the Green Line now this radio shows listen to by people in Israel and by people that love Israel all around the world Jews and Christians but I'm assuming not too many ultra-orthodox people are listening to radio on the Internet I could be wrong but for those who are tell them why they should vote for United Torah Judaism first of all I don't think on the Orthodox it vote for the United tourism I think it all Israeli so close I think it's a party that you're probably the only party that's there for 70 years and doing a very very terrific job in helping the population and mostly things that disturb a normal residence in the country you know helping a going through the accuracy em were right for families for children for altar elder people were health rights and we did the things that United so Judaism has been working and that Israel should be a Jewish state and you know those are things that I think most Jews and of course Israelis believe in it and want it and that's the reason I think they should vote for them and we know what got to be did for the last four and a half years as chairman of the Finance Committee in the Knesset and again helping people helping you going through it the accuracy is helping the system to be a lot more favored for the residents of Israel and that enough would clear reason all these companies that were going bankrupt and closing down is saving them and saving people's jobs saving people's all these reasons the reasons why people should vote hurrah no the party's gotten along very well with Netanyahu over the last decade and now Netanyahu has a serious challenge from bending gansan yesterday when Benny spoke in a pack in Washington he said there's more than enough room at the western wall for everyone and I agree there's enough room everybody I live in the old city and I know the Western Wall and I don't I never heard of anyone that wasn't led into the Western world and wasn't letting to pray and then there could pray over there and do whatever you want don't want sex what you're praying and how you're praying and what you're saying or what you write on your note when you put it in the wall and I I don't see any reason you know there's a small group that's trying to change the regulation who runs the security over there or whatever but nobody runs the careers over there every Jew doubles at the Western world knows that you could walk in and lead your prayer however you want whatever you want this whole gangs idea is something that it isn't clear we don't know what their ideas are I'm not sure they know what their ideas are I mean it's a mix of left and right religious and non-religious and they a capitalist and social is the unions and the big companies I mean no one really knows what they believe in and I'm not sure they know what they believe and one thing is for sure I mean there's no way everybody knows how to count and calculate the cancer first of all could it all have been an experiment but even he would have he needs the Orthodox parties with him so I believe that he knows also that what he said yesterday tape it doesn't make any it doesn't mean really anything to happen that they after the election that makes sense you don't do you see a possibility remotely even of your party joining a government with him as Prime Minister I don't see in being in this situation of trying to be Prime Minister and again because we prefer to go with the Prime Minister the first of all succeeded in the in the international relationships in Israel succeeded in the whole developing Israel you see the roads you see the trains and you see Israel is blowing financially I mean they're doing very very well to start with people like I said before that we have no idea what they really do them or you want that we know what he does is his Lafitte which was a terrible Treasury Minister in Israel and he didn't succeed over there so I don't see any reason or any way for us to try to change the system in his go okay so I guess my last question for you would be a prediction how many seats is your party going to get an election day will will your the your party's power continue to grow as as ultra-orthodox families have more children and they become a 18 years old and able to vote I believe we're going to get 15% at least more votes than we got last time 15 16 percent more votes than we got last time it mounts of seats depends by the end of the day at the Fisher now time Falls but it depends on the what would be the the percentage of voters and that we can't know until the 10 o'clock the night of the elections how many people voted and got really depends on that it depends on the percentage we know our voters we know how many people can become we believe like I said would grow 16 percent at least so it really depends at there we could get 8 or 9 seats and that depends on the average person wonderfully Itzhak Pinder's thank you for coming here on inside Israel Israel today on the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm thank you and we should have great elections I mean that was it stock painters the number eight candidate in United Torah Judaism and perhaps the Knesset member on April 9th and though there are still two weeks left ladies and gentlemen I'm not sure yet what we're doing next week with that one week that we have left since Shas did not agree to an interview should we have an Arab Knesset member or candidate should we go back to blue and white because I technically interviewed someone before from Yesha teed and not from ganses party I don't know yet a lot of different possibilities to how to handle that last week if you have an opinion on who I've not done yet you can email Gilly Jay post comm GI l and Jay post calm and sometimes we now next Tuesday we will be making a decision on the final candidate in the meet the candidates series so this has been inside Israel today here on the land of Israel Network on the land of israel calm Shalom from Jerusalem bye-bye