Meirav Ben-Ari, a member of Knesset from the opposition Yesh Atid party, sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that businessman Oren Dobrovsky's would receive a reserved spot on the Likud party's electoral list. In Israel's parliamentary system, party leaders can "reserve" certain positions on their candidate lists for specific individuals.
In her statement on Tuesday, Ben-Ari made pointed references to Dobrovsky's personal background, describing him as "an Ashkenazi man who lived most of his life abroad, married a non-Jewish woman there, and wears an expensive watch." She contrasted this with her own experience, recalling criticism she faced from Likud supporters when she joined Yesh Atid, including accusations that she had "become Ashkenazi" - a reference to ethnic tensions in Israeli politics between Jews of European (Ashkenazi) and Middle Eastern/North African (Mizrahi) descent.
