V If the Israeli election campaign couldn’t get any more bizarre, this week, cannabis legalisation became a smoking issue. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Likud Facebook Live questions hour that after “leading” a reform in the availability of medical marijuana, he is now considering legalising its use for the general population. Other party leaders, including Kulanu’s Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and the New Right’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett, found opportunities to say that they could support legalisation.
There is no serious programme to legalise cannabis afoot. Mr Netanyahu is unlikely ever to support such a move that deeply conservative members of his coalition, not to mention his main benefactors, Sheldon and Miri Adelson, are deeply opposed to. The only reason he and the other leaders of the right-wing are piping up is a surprising development in the polls. In four out of five polls appearing in the media over the last week, Zehut (Identity), a right-wing ultra-libertarian party, is over the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent, with four seats in the next Knesset.
Lead by Moshe Feiglin, a veteran right-wing campaigner whose resume includes being arrested for incitement during the protests against the Oslo Process in the 1990s and one term as a Likud Knesset member, Zehut’s manifesto combines far-right positions such as annexing the West Bank and cancelling the Oslo accords, together with policies hitherto supported only by the left, such as a complete separation of religion and state, including ending the Rabbinate’s monopoly on marriage. Legalising cannabis has long been Mr Feiglin’s signature policy, and is at the forefront of the party’s campaigning, especially online. He has also refused to rule out the party which has maverick rabbis and settlers on its candidates’ list, sitting in a center-left coalition.
Parties calling for legalisation have never crossed the electoral threshold in the past, and Zehut’s surge in the polls may be a temporary blip as well. But it represents a trend already identified by the pollsters of right-wing voters who are fed up with Mr Netanyahu and the other coalition parties automatically supporting him. Zehut is bad news for them whether or not it gets in to the next Knesset. Should it fail to fail to cross the threshold, it will have wasted tens, perhaps over a hundred thousands votes for the right-wing. Should it pass, it will cause a headache in the coalition talks. Reason enough for the prime minister to puff some clouds on his drug policy.
