Face to Face with Degel HaTorah Head Moshe Gafni

His more than three decades as MK means that Gafni has an interesting perspective on the upcoming elections, Israel’s fourth in two years. He fears that the political deadlock won’t be broken, despite the right-on-right conflict in this race. He unapologetically defends the chareidi parties’ alliance with Binyamin Netanyahu, but insists that his party hasn’t become a satellite of the Likud.

And his position on Yair Lapid, once again Bibi’s main political rival, hasn’t changed: “I don’t ban anyone, but we can’t sit in the same coalition.”

Let’s start with your feeling about the elections, now just weeks away. Your party has barely started campaigning — are you anxious about the way things are developing?

“We’ve never had a campaign quite like this. Ordinarily we would be holding meetings and organizing mass rallies with gedolei haTorah, but this time that isn’t possible, and the situation is both strange and worrisome. The corona is a blow from Shamayim that’s being felt in every area. In the area of politics, going to the current elections was extremely stupid, and what’s worse is that there’s no end in sight. According to the polls, no one will win a majority and we may have to go to another election campaign.”

That’s your prediction? Another draw?

“Yes. We all see the same signs. No one knows for sure, we can only make informed guesses. But at the end of the day, there are two blocs in Israeli politics, so we could easily once again reach a situation where there’s no decision. And if there’s no decision, we’ll have to go to elections again — which is a terrible thing, in a time like this.”