“I pray that [US Secretary of State] John Kerry doesn’t succeed, and I will do everything I can to cause him to fail,” comes the plain answer from Zvulun Kalfa, a new Knesset Member who holds the seventh spot on the HaBayit HaYehudi party list, when asked in an interview for Al-Monitor about the secretary of state’s recent visit to the region. Kalfa is still trying to deal with the trauma of being evicted from his home in the settlement of Amona during the implementation of the 2006 Disengagement Plan. He considers his term in the Knesset “a mission to prevent the next expulsion.”

An alumnus of the Hesder program (which combines army service with religious studies), Kalfa belongs to the extreme wing of his party, together with Knesset Members Orit Strock and Yoni Chetboun. Like them, Kalfa believes that the state of Israel should stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, claiming, “It is our historic right.” Last Tuesday, July 2, the Knesset marked eight years since the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria. Knesset member Kalfa delivered an emotional speech to the forum, declaring, “We shall return!”

The text of the interview follows:

Al-Monitor:  You are a member of the coalition in which the prime minister is trying to advance a two-state solution, at least in his public declarations. Aren’t you worried that Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, the head of your party, will eventually be part of such a process?