Netanyahu Accuses Ra’am’s Segalovitch of Failing to Call Hamas a Terror Group

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Ra’am MK Yoav Segalovitch on November 12 of failing to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization. In a statement on his own channel, Netanyahu connected the accusation to his opposition to forming a government with Ra’am and the Joint List. Netanyahu identified Segalovitch as Ra’am’s representative on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and asked, in a translated question, “With them they want to form a government?” He called a government involving the two parties dangerous. The Central Elections Committee’s official results, published November 4, list Segalovitch among those elected on Ra’am’s slate, headed by Mansour Abbas. The statement followed Netanyahu’s November 11 appeal to Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman over their prospective coalition partners. In that earlier statement, Netanyahu described national unity as the need of the hour. President Isaac Herzog tasked Yashar leader Eisenkot with forming a government at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on November 8. The president’s office said 67 lawmakers had recommended Eisenkot, 46 had recommended Netanyahu, and one seven-member faction had declined to recommend a candidate. Herzog urged the formation of a government serving all of Israel’s communities.