The far-right Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit, announced on Wednesday that it will run on a joint slate with the National Union Party in Israel‘s March election.
National Union said that they are still in talks with the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party and welcome a merger.
Labor, Otzma Yehudit, Derech Eretz, Gesher and Bayit Yehudi all part of the right-wing coalition led by Netanyahu would not pass the electoral threshold (3.25%), according to the poll. Consequently, based on this poll, the right-wing bloc, would win a total of 60 seats, one short of a majority in the 120 seat Knesset.
In a statement released by the party, it said that “The New Right will run as the party of the ideological and liberal Right. This is the only chance of the Right bloc to reach 61 seats and victory.”
Bennett’s party argued that running in parallel to the considerably more religious joint slate of Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Rafi Peretz and nationalist hardliner Itamar Ben Gvir, would, in total, attract more votes to the parties of the right than unifying all into one slate.
Vote by right-wing party’s central committee also paves way for alliance with Betzalel Smotrich’s National Union
„We must not reach a situation in which one of [the right-wing] parties doesn’t pass the electoral threshold, thus wasting thousands right-wing votes,“ the statement added.
In addition, it said that Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Rafi Peretz and Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir call on National Union‘s Bezalel Smotrich to „Close ranks as soon as today, and join the ranks of religious Zionism. National Union is an inseparable part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties.“
MK Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the National Union party, has already announced that he supports passing legislation to spare Netanyahu from standing trial while in office. Two other parties, Hayamin Hehadash and United Torah Judaism, have said they would consider supporting such a bill.
But the Kulanu party said it would oppose any such legislation.
As it stands, Kahol Lavan maintains a lead of only three seats.
The poll also shows that if the elections were to take place today, six parties would teeter on the brink of the electoral threshold. Avigdor Lieberman‘s Yisrael Beiteinu, the United Arab List-Balad, Meretz, Moshe Feiglin‘s Zehut party and Naftali Bennet and Ayelet Shaked‘s Hayamin Hehadash would all make the minimum four seats needed to enter Knesset.
If we are to defeat this dangerous alliance, we must provide a clear alternative. The only way for the left to prevail is to choose solidarity and the shared Jewish-Arab struggle for peace, equality and democracy.
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel represent 20 percent of the population. We cannot change the course of the country alone. But there is no electoral math that leads to victory for a center-left-wing coalition without the participation of the Arab parties.
The Central Election Committee disqualified the Arab joint slate Balad-United Arab List and Ofer Cassif, a member of politicial alliance Hadash-Ta‘al, from running in the election on Wednesday, opposing the opinion of Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit.
After successfully instilling public opinion with an automatic association between “the left” and disloyalty in the service of malevolent foreigners, Netanyahu and his Likud messengers are studiously attaching the stigma to their political rivals including, most ludicrously, former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and his newly-formed Blue and White party, which would be classified as center-right by any normal standard. For those too dense to comprehend, Netanyahu now insists on expanding the term “left” with the arguably racist determiner “backed by Arabs” to drive home the opposition’s subversive treachery.
(25.2.2019) Last week, the remnants of the National Religious Party – known in its latest incarnation as Habayit Hayehudi – merged with Otzma Yehudit, a party whose members embrace the racist ideology of the late Kahane and are disciples of his. The party he originally founded, known as Kach, is outlawed in Israel. The alliance was pushed by Netanyahu, who feared that without the Kahanists joining their ranks, Habayit Hayehudi might not reach the electoral threshold, jeopardizing his ability to form a right-wing majority bloc after the April 9 election.
American Jewish Committee (AJC) does not normally comment on political parties and candidates during an election. But with the announcement that Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), a new political party formed by longtime followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is now seeking election to the Knesset, we feel compelled to speak out.
Netanyahu lost his moral compass years ago, but his electoral deal with Israel‘s most extreme racists is a moment of crisis, and a test, for American Jews. Don‘t fail it
(21.2.2019)
The order of candidates is:
1. Rabbi Rafi Peretz (Jewish Home)
2. Bezalel Smotrich (National Union)
3. Motti Yogev (Jewish Home)
4. Ofir Sofer (National Union)
5. Michael Ben Ari (Otzma Yehudit)
6. Idit Silman (Jewish Home)
7. Orit Strook (National Union)
8. Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit)
9. Yossi Cohen (National Union)
10. Davidi Ben Zion (Jewish Home)
(video)
One of those factions is Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, made up of followers of the late Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist American Israeli rabbi. Israeli commentators and U.S. Jewish groups immediately decried the move, saying the faction was clearly an offshoot of Kahane’s Kach party, a group that is designated a terrorist organization by the State Department and banned in Israel.
(20.2.2019) Habayit Hayehudi approved the merger with Otzma Yehudit, a right-wing party led by followers of racist Rabbi Meir Kahane who was banned from running for Knesset in 1988