Far-right party joins alliance in bid to enter Israeli government
Otzma Yehudit - whose supporters want to expel Arabs from historic lands - will run together with the Jewish Home Party in the third elections
A far-right party that follows the tenets of the banned extremist Kach and its late leader Meir Kahane will form an alliance with another small right-wing party to run in Israel’s March election aiming to enter parliament.
Jewish Power, or Otzma Yehudit, which supports expelling Arabs from areas that fall within the Bible-era border of the Land of Israel, and Jewish Home announced Friday that they will run together ahead of Israel’s third national elections in under a year, set for March 2, The Times of Israel reported.
One of the senior members of Jewish Power is Baruch Marzel, a leader of settlers in Hebron who was an aide to Kahane inside Kach, the Israeli counterpart of the JDL that Kahane founded in the United States. Israel outlawed Kach in 1994, citing racist policies. JDL was listed as “a right-wing terrorist group” by the FBI in 2004. Kahane was killed in the United States by an Arab terrorist in 1990.
Jewish Power and Jewish Home, a pro-settler party, called on additional parties right of Likud to join the alliance.
Jewish Home and Jewish Power ran together in the April elections – Israel’s second national vote this year – as part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, which also included the National Union.
The alliance ultimately won five seats in the Knesset in April, but the parliament was dissolved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he could not put together a coalition. Another election was held in September. Those elections also failed to deliver a government and new elections were called.
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