Israeli-American Nobel laureate to form hawkish party
Prof. Israel Aumann, Nobel prize winner for economics in 2005, to help MK Effie Eitam establish new political party, which will serve as umbrella for several small hardline parties
Israeli-American Nobel laureate Israel (Robert) Aumann is forming a new hawkish political party with ultranationalist Israeli lawmaker Effie Eitam, a spokesman for Eitam said Tuesday.
Aumann, a Nobel prize winner for economics in 2005, will help establish the party, but will not run for parliament, said the spokesman, Avi Lerner.
The party will be called ''Land, Society and Judaism,'' Lerner said. The party is meant to be an umbrella for several small hardline parties, namely National Union and the National Religious Party, that oppose concessions to the Palestinians, he said.
Aumann, an expert in game theory, has questioned Israel's peace efforts with the Palestinians, saying Israeli concessions invite violence from the other side. An Orthodox Jew, he also supports Jewish settlements in the West Bank and spoke out against Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
In a public letter intended to garner support for the party this week, Aumann complained of a ''deep leadership crisis'' and expressed frustration over a ''lack of direction'' in education and morals, Lerner said.
Aumann wrote that his letter was directed to the ''religious, traditional and national-Zionist public,'' Lerner said.
