Netanyahu just gave unprecedented power to far-Right politician fighting LGBTQ ‘deviants’

Noam’s Avi Maoz will become a deputy minister tasked with promoting 'national-Jewish identity'.

The leader of the far-Right Noam party is set to become a new deputy minister in the Office of the Prime Minister in order to promote “National-Jewish identity,” the Likud party announced on Sunday.

Soon-to-be prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck another coalition agreement with Avi Maoz’s Noam party, conceding to his demand to form an authority on Jewish values in the next government.

Maoz will also be given the reins over Nativ, the government agency in charge of promoting immigration from post-Soviet states.

The leader of the fringe, far-Right party has been touring Israeli media panels in the past week, calling for an “national authority for Jewish identity,” attacking the Education Ministry’s new guidelines to help transgender youths and the ban on conversion therapy.

Noam sees itself as a champion of Jewish, national and religious values. It raises the banner of “Jewish identity,” “family values” and fights against what it calls “post-modernism.”  In practice, Noam’s representatives oppose LGBTQ and Reform Jews’ rights, and want to reform the judiciary system.

Following the news of the agreement between Netanyahu and Maoz on Sunday night, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid issued a response: “Likud voters, is this what you wished for? With every passing day, instead of a fully right-wing government, we are getting a fully crazy government. The fact that Netanyahu appointed Avi Maoz, Rabbi Tau’s representative, as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, is nothing short of insanity. This is an individual who doesn’t want women serving in the IDF, or women in senior positions, and supports LGBTQ conversion therapy and all manner of other unenlightened views. Is this what you wished for? For this backwards nationalist to decide over your lives? Over your daughters? Over your gay nephew? Is this the Israel you want?”

The Reform movement in Israel issued a statement in response. “We remind the presumed head of the [Jewish identity] authority that there is more than one way to be a Jew or Jewess. Avi Maoz...will not decide for millions of Jews and Jewesses in Israel and the Diaspora what those ways are.”

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Netanyahu just gave unprecedented power to far-Right politician fighting LGBTQ 'deviants' (Haaretz)

Photo: Avi Maoz head of Noam (Oren Ben Hakoon/Haaretz)