Noam has dropped out as it wouldn’t meet the vote threshold it needed.
Noam, an anti-gay, hardline Orthodox Jewish party has dropped out of the Israeli general election, fearing it would fail to reach the 3.25% vote threshold that it needed to.
The party claimed that it had attracted 70,000 supporters, which is half the number that the party needs to enter the Israeli Knesset.
When Noam was active in the political campaign, it launched an incredibly controversial ad comparing gay people to child trafficking. The ad, which was to be displayed on a billboard and on the side of buses, said: “Pride and the buying of children, or having my son marry a woman – Israel chooses to be normal.”
Advertising agencies attempted to have the ad banned, but a judge ruled that as the ad was electorally-related, the agencies had to run it. A different ad, also with anti-LGBTQ themes, was banned on YouTube for violating their terms of use.
The Jerusalem Post reports the party’s leader, Rabbi Dror Aryeh as saying: “We succeeded with God’s help to bring the story that everyone is trying to silence to the front of the stage.
“With thousands of volunteers, we managed to expose to Israel the attempt of foreign elements to take over the country and dismantle our basic values as a nation and a country.
“We dared say the truth that everyone was afraid to say.”
However, despite dropping out of the general election, the party plans to remain active, and continue promoting its backward views. In addition to being anti-LGBTQ, the party is also anti-feminist and aims to fight against the so-called “destruction of the family.”
Although Israel has a good track record with LGBTQ rights, the country’s Education Minister recently landed himself in controversy after he claimed that gay ‘conversion’ was possible.
On Channel 12 TV, Rafi Peretz said: “I think that it is possible to convert [someone’s sexual orientation]. I can tell you that I have deep familiarity on the issue of education, and I have also done this.”
He later backtracked from his comments, saying: “I never turned a cold shoulder or suggested conversion therapy, which I oppose utterly. I know conversion therapy is wrong and grave, that’s my unequivocal stance.
“I understand that this is an invasive treatment that is unsuitable for the human psyche, causes those treated more suffering than relief, and can even put peoples lives in peril and cause suicidal tendencies.
“I never thought, and certainly haven’t said, that this kind of therapy should be part of the educational system, and certainly have no intention of doing so.”
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