Eretz Yisrael Shelanu

Opposition to territorial compromise and the evacuation of Jewish settlements was central to Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’s founding announcements.[1][5] Wolpo presented the proposed party as a response to what he regarded as other parties’ abandonment of the struggle to preserve the whole Land of Israel.[5] At the December 2008 launch in Jerusalem, he and Marzel criticized Habayit Hayehudi for failing, in their view, to represent its constituency and resist settlement evacuations.[1]

The organization joined the National Union before the 2009 election.[6] It subsequently conducted public campaigns involving Jerusalem’s Temple imagery and demands for an apology over the Gaza disengagement.[2][7] Its parliamentary representative in the National Union was Michael Ben-Ari, who entered the 18th Knesset after occupying fourth place on the alliance’s list.[6]

Accounts of Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’s formation emphasize different figures. One account describes the organization as the 2008 relaunch of Baruch Marzel’s National Jewish Front after Marzel formed an alliance with Rabbi Sholom Dov Wolpo.[6] Another attributes its formation before the 2009 election to Michael Ben-Ari and a group of Chabad Hasidim.[8] The predecessor National Jewish Front had been established by right-wing religious-Zionist activists angered by what they considered the National Religious Party’s weakness over disengagement.[3] Marzel, its leader, had previously been a senior Kach activist.[6]

In November 2008, Wolpo and like-minded activists announced plans for a new electoral list.[5] Wolpo had ties both to Chabad communities that regarded the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the Messiah and to right-wing settler circles that included Marzel’s Jewish Front.[5] He said that he and Marzel would probably join forces, but also offered to abandon a separate list if Habayit Hayehudi promised not to enter a government planning territorial compromises.[5]

Marzel and Wolpo announced Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’s founding at a Jerusalem press conference in December 2008 and said it would contest the approaching Knesset election.[1] Wolpo also headed SOS Israel, an organization opposing peace agreements that involved land concessions.[1]

For the 2009 election, Eretz Yisrael Shelanu joined the National Union, with Ben-Ari placed fourth on the joint list.[6] The alliance included Hatikva and Moledet as well as Tkuma and Eretz Yisrael Shelanu.[9] It won four seats, bringing Ben-Ari into the Knesset, but Benjamin Netanyahu did not include the alliance in his governing coalition.[3][6]

In 2012, Eretz Yisrael Shelanu and Hatikva announced that they would leave the National Union and form Otzma LeYisrael.[10] By November, Ben-Ari had quit Eretz Yisrael Shelanu as the National Union’s structure changed.[11] Following unsuccessful negotiations with Tkuma, he and MK Arieh Eldad broke from the National Union and formed Strong Israel, known in Hebrew as Otzma L’Israel, with Eldad heading its list.[11] Their new party did not pass the electoral threshold in the following election.[8]

A weekly newsletter bearing the name Eretz Yisrael Shelanu was distributed through synagogues in 2008 by the World Headquarters for the Salvation of the People and the Land.[12] One week’s planned distribution was 100,000 copies.[12] The newsletter carried remarks by Rabbi Dov Lior criticizing the Gaza disengagement and restrictions on construction and settlement, and calling on soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlements.[12]

In April 2010, Eretz Israel Shelanu sponsored advertisements on 200 Jerusalem city buses showing a reconstructed Jewish Temple above the Dome of the Rock.[2] Most of the buses carrying the advertisements were assigned to routes in East Jerusalem.[2]

In 2011, Wolpo, then identified as the movement’s chairman, sent Yoav Gallant an open letter demanding an apology for his role in the 2005 disengagement from Gaza.[7] Under the campaign slogan “There is judgment and a judge,” Wolpo argued that the investigations then facing Gallant gave particular meaning to the idea of measure for measure.[7] Shai Gefen, the movement’s director-general and one of the campaign’s initiators, also called on Gallant to apologize publicly to displaced residents and to the public.[7]

An electoral list using the Eretz Yisrael Shelanu name in 2019 supported sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel and presented care for bereaved families, disabled veterans and elderly people as priorities.[13] Its chairman, Rafi Lavangerund, advocated the death penalty for terrorists, demolition of terrorists’ homes and deportation of their families.[13]

Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’s participation in the National Union gave it parliamentary representation through Ben-Ari during the 18th Knesset.[6] His subsequent departure from both the party and the National Union preceded his electoral partnership with Eldad in Strong Israel.[11][8]

The name also appeared in later electoral arrangements associated with Otzma Yehudit.[4][14] In reporting on the 2022 Knesset, Eretz Yisrael Shelanu was identified as a party headed by MK Yitzhak Wasserlauf that operated within Otzma Yehudit, rather than as an independent parliamentary faction.[4]

The election list submitted by Itamar Ben-Gvir in 2026 included two registered parties, Otzma Yehudit and Eretz Yisrael Shelanu.[14] Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Yitzhak Kroizer were placed under the latter party even though they operated within Otzma Yehudit; the separate registration provided a basis for separate party financing.[14] These later references concern the electoral use of the registered party name and do not by themselves establish continuity with every activity of the 2008–2009 movement.[14]

The 2010 Jerusalem bus advertisements provoked criticism and threats toward the bus company, after which the franchiser removed them.[2] At the party’s emergence in 2008, Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer announced that his organization would challenge its registration, citing Wolpo’s public calls for soldiers to refuse evacuation orders and for settlement activity as grounds for the proposed appeal.[5]

A state comptroller audit covering March 2009 through December 2010 found that Eretz Yisrael Shelanu had not managed its finances correctly and had failed to maintain documentation of expenditures.[15] The party faced a reduction in state funding after receiving no positive audit report.[15] Spokesman Itamar Ben-Gvir characterized the shortcomings as technical, said the party would learn from the criticism, and explained that it had not understood all the rules during its first period in the Knesset.[15]