First-time Knesset members Nir Barkat (Likud), Gabi Ashkenazi (Blue and White), May Golan (Likud) and Ofer Cassif (Hadash-Ta`al) delivered their inaugural speeches in the Knesset plenum on Tuesday and presented the issues they plan to promote in parliament.
 
MK Barkat noted that as mayor of Jerusalem, he advanced the city “for the benefit of all its residents, those who visit it and those all around the world who love it.” Barkat said that, as mayor, he frequently dealt with the term “status quo,” which he said is now more “important and relevant” than ever before. “My definition of ‘status quo’ is: In places where conflicting worldviews cannot be bridged, between secular and religious people, between Jews and Muslims, between right and left, ‘social compromises’ are created so that people may coexist in a world that is not perfect for anyone,” he told the plenum.
 
MK Barkat said one of his main goals in the Knesset will be the advancement of the periphery. “After serving the residents of Jerusalem for the past 15 years, I made the decision to take my life experience and bring it to the national level,” he said, adding that the advancement of the periphery should be a goal of all Knesset members. “We mustn’t reach the point where most of the population is concentrated between Gedera and Hadera. We need to create a conceptual change and define as a national mission the preservation of regions of the Land of Israel in the geographical periphery of the country.”
 
MK Golan said in her speech that the struggle of the residents of south Tel Aviv will be at the top of her list of priorities as a lawmaker. “When the illegal infiltrators stole the border of the only country we have, I searched for justice; I searched and searched but could not find it. The same High Court of Justice which was supposed to choose between the existential and basic rights of the citizens of Israel and the [rights] of those who illegally infiltrated [Israel], chose them over us,” she stated.
 
MK Golan pledged to be the voice “of all those whose voices are not heard, the weak, the transparent, those who have lost faith in the system and in those who are supposed to give them protection. That same system betrayed them, turned its back on their suffering, and turned a blind eye. ‘Neighborhood’ is not a bad word. I plan to represent the neighborhoods, the social and economic peripheries of Israeli society.”
 
MK Ashkenazi, a former IDF chief of staff, said he plans to dedicate his term to the young people of Israel. “In my view, our youngsters are the future of the State of Israel, and we must guarantee a better future for them – from an economic, social and security standpoint,” he declared in his speech. “We must change the reality in which, unfortunately, the future of a boy or a girl can be predicted according to their place of birth. All people were born equal, and we must make certain each and every one of them gets an equal opportunity. In my experience, every young person, given a real and equal opportunity, can one day become IDF chief of staff, and I am proof of this. I got a chance. I plan to dedicate my term to them, the youngsters of the State of Israel, and I will fight for them from the Knesset.”
 
Addressing the opposition’s expected battle against the coalition’s legislative initiatives, MK Ashkenazi said “We pledge that when you try to trample the principles of democracy, divide and split [Israeli society], we will be a defense shield like you’ve never seen before. Blue and White, together with the opposition, is committed to ensuring Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu does not succeed in passing his package of anti-democratic laws and creating for himself refuge.”
 
“I turn from here also to members of the coalition: Don’t allow the coalition agreements to contain immunity for criminal suspects. I believe like you that no one is above the law… even if he is prime minister,” MK Ashkenazi said.
 
“History will judge all of us and also you for our conduct and choices at this time,” he added.   
 
MK Cassif attacked the doctrine of late Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, saying it was rooted in “a shameful racial theory” which “placed the Jewish collective as above all other nations; as the first in an imaginary hierarchy.”
 
“It's obvious that the political plan that was derived from this terrible teaching, and which, to his great shame, has taken hold in the corridors of government in the direction of the Prime Minister's Office, essentially contradicts all human dignity,” he stated. “In fact, no hierarchy (racial, national, gender, or class) can respect a person as a human being. Only true, deep, and full equality can express such dignity and ensure its realization in practice. This requires a comprehensive political doctrine: revolutionary ideology and practice that puts man at the center - not the nation, not the state, not the land, not religion. The person as a person. I found this already years ago in Marxist socialism."
 
In his address, MK Cassif argued that the real conflict in Israel is not between Arabs and Jews but between “oppressors and those who are oppressed.” He further argued that Israel was in the process of becoming a fascist country. “The outgoing Israeli government, headed by the serial suspect of criminal acts, has begun an expedited process of fascismization within Israel itself – a process which erases any semblance of democracy; unbridled incitement against Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of the state and against the left;  systematic tongue-lashing  in the media and the legal system; the persecution of human rights organizations; restricting criticism of the government and the person at its helm, which borders on a cult of personality; and the violation of the rights of workers and their organizations – have become the main practice of Netanyahu and his assistants.”