Jeremy Gimpel, the U.S.-born Knesset candidate who’s fourteenth on the far-right Jewish Home’s list, has gotten into hot water over a video unearthed this weekend where he talks enthusiastically about the Dome of the Rock being blown up.
Speaking in 2011 to a Christian audience, Gimpel says, "Let’s say the Dome was blown up, right? And we laid the cornerstone of the temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine? None of you would be here. You would all be like, ‘I’m going to Israel, right? No one would be here! it would be incredible!"
Coming only a few days before an election, this is a candidate’s worst nightmare. Unless that candidate lives in Israel.
Unlike U.S. candidates, Gimpel isn’t running in a district or region. He doesn’t have constituents who pay attention first and foremost to him. Israelis all vote in one election, and vote directly for a party, not specific candidates. So if enough people vote for Jewish Home, it will earn 14 seats and Gimpel will head to the Knesset — a definite possibility. If not, he won’t.
In other words, no Israeli can watch this video and then decide, "I’m not voting for Jeremy Gimpel." Israelis can watch the video and decide not to vote for Jewish Home, though most Israelis pay attention to what party leaders say, and tend not to care about the gaffes of number 14.
Israeli political culture is also replete with controversial statements of this kind. Take number 23 on the joint Likud-Beitenu list, Moshe Feiglin. Feiglin recently wrote on Facebook that Jews should "build the temple on top of the Temple Mount and fulfill our purpose in the land.”
(In 2004, Feiglin also told Jeffrey Goldberg, then at the New Yorker, that "You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic.")
It’s theoretically possible that, in the two days before elections, a sufficient number of Israelis will see this video and decide that Jewish Home is not their party. But whether or not Jewish Home gets to 14 seats, it probably won’t be because of Jeremy Gimpel.
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