Religious Zionist Party

The Religious Zionist Party combines a commitment to Jewish education and the state’s Jewish character with support for Israeli sovereignty and settlement in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[3] Its political program opposes territorial concessions and Palestinian statehood, while its domestic proposals address the courts, religion and state, economic policy, military service, and Jewish worship on the Temple Mount.[3] The party’s predecessor, Tkuma, likewise opposed territorial concessions, and Smotrich presented the adoption of the Religious Zionism name before the 2021 election as an effort to unite religious Zionists and provide an ideological right-wing voice in the Knesset.[4]

The party and the electoral lists bearing its name are not identical: the 2021 grouping included Religious Zionism/National Union–Tkuma, Otzma Yehudit, and Noam, while the 2022 common slate again brought those three parties together.[5][2] Of the 14 seats won by the 2022 slate, Religious Zionism received seven, Otzma Yehudit six, and Noam one.[2] After that election, the joint list divided into separate parliamentary factions led by Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Avi Maoz respectively.[6] The later Religious Zionism–Zehut alliance was also a technical electoral arrangement in which the participating parties retained their separate identities.[3]

Smotrich has led the underlying party since 2019 and is a trained lawyer with a background in activism for Jewish nationalist and religiously conservative causes.[2] The party inherited a formal rabbinical committee from National Union–Tkuma, although its contemporary leadership operates principally through Smotrich and its elected institutions.[3] Senior religious-Zionist rabbis continue to advise its leaders on major political and ideological questions.[3] Its parliamentary responsibilities expanded after the 2022 election, when Smotrich became finance minister and an additional minister in the Defense Ministry with substantial authority over civilian affairs in Judea and Samaria.[3]

Tkuma, whose Hebrew name means “Resurrection,” was established in 1998 after Hanan Porat and Zvi Hendel left the National Religious Party.[4] Their departure followed the signing of the Wye River Memorandum in late 1998.[5] Tkuma joined Moledet and Herut in the National Union, which won four seats in the 1999 election.[4] An expanded National Union won seven seats in 2003 and entered Ariel Sharon’s coalition, but later left amid disagreements over the Gaza withdrawal, which Tkuma opposed.[4]

In 2006, Tkuma participated in a joint list with the National Religious Party that won nine seats, two allocated to Tkuma representatives.[4] A proposed merger into the Jewish Home in 2008 was followed by the departure of some former Tkuma members and the party’s re-establishment.[4] Tkuma subsequently ran within the Jewish Home list in 2013, when the list won 12 seats, and maintained that alliance for the 2015 election, when it won eight.[4] These successive arrangements placed Tkuma within different combinations of right-wing and religious-national parties rather than maintaining an unchanging electoral vehicle.[4]

Smotrich assumed the party leadership in 2019 and renamed it the Religious Zionism Party before the 2021 election.[4] Before that election, he also left the Yamina list.[7] The new Religious Zionism grouping combined his underlying party with Otzma Yehudit and Noam and was led by Smotrich.[5] Its six-seat result came from 225,641 votes, or 5.12% of the national vote.[8] Candidates included Smotrich, Michal Woldiger, Ben-Gvir, Simcha Rothman, Orit Strock, and Maoz.[8] The overall election result left the political blocs without a clear winner.[7]

Ahead of the November 2022 election, Smotrich’s party and Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit agreed to run together after weeks of negotiations, and Noam joined only hours before the list was submitted.[9] At the filing, Smotrich said that “out of great responsibility, we created great unity,” while acknowledging that the arrangement required concessions.[9] The joint slate received 516,146 votes, or 10.83%, and won 14 seats, making it the third-largest list in the 25th Knesset.[10] This represented an increase of eight seats over the 2021 grouping’s result and more than a doubling of its approximately 5.1% vote share.[11]

The 2022 result helped Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc secure a parliamentary majority, and Religious Zionism joined the ensuing Likud-led coalition.[12][13] Netanyahu’s bloc won 64 seats overall.[12] Despite campaigning together, the constituent parties negotiated separately with Likud after the election.[14] The Knesset Arrangements Committee subsequently approved the electoral bloc’s division into Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, and Noam factions.[6] Orit Strock’s Future One remained within Religious Zionism, while Yitzhak Wasserlauf’s Our Land of Israel remained within Otzma Yehudit.[6]

The December 2022 coalition accord allocated Smotrich the Finance Ministry for two years under a rotation arrangement with Shas leader Aryeh Deri.[13] Ofir Sofer was to become minister of aliyah and integration, Strock was to head a new national mission ministry, and Rothman was to chair the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.[13] The accord also allocated the party a ministerial position within the Defense Ministry and responsibilities involving settlement administration, the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, national service, and pre-military academies.[13]

For the 2026 election, Religious Zionism formed a joint ticket with Zehut, the libertarian-nationalist party of former Likud Knesset member Moshe Feiglin, after its earlier partnership with Otzma Yehudit and Noam had broken up.[1] Announced on September 1, the agreement aimed to prevent either party’s votes from being lost below the electoral threshold.[3] Smotrich headed the list, followed by Feiglin, Strock, and Rothman.[3] The parties retained separate identities, intended to campaign separately, and could split after entering the Knesset under their technical-bloc arrangement.[3][4]

The Religious Zionism–Zehut list received 290,451 votes, or 5.10%, and won six seats in the October 2026 election.[1] The final results left Netanyahu’s right-wing partners with 53 seats, below the 61 required for a majority in the 120-member Knesset.[15] The six-seat tally therefore belonged to a different electoral combination from the three-party slate that had won 14 seats in 2022.[1][2]

During the 2022 campaign, Smotrich declared, “The Civil Administration must be dismantled, and sovereignty promoted,” and had previously submitted bills concerning the administration’s abolition.[16] The party supports expanding settlements, extending Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and opposing Palestinian statehood.[3] Its predecessor’s positions included opposition to territorial concessions; some Tkuma members supported annexation of the entire West Bank, while the official policy of the Jewish Home parliamentary faction to which it belonged supported annexation of Area C.[4]

The party’s reported campaign positions have also included encouraging Arab citizens of Israel to emigrate, annexing the West Bank without granting Palestinians voting or other civil rights, and imposing the death penalty for terrorists.[4] In parliamentary politics, it opposed a government dependent on parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.[17] Alongside its territorial agenda, the party supports aligning Israeli societal practices with traditional Jewish religious law.[2] Its stated educational and cultural priorities include strengthening Jewish education and preserving the state’s Jewish character.[3]

The agreement preceding the formation of the government after the 2022 election provided for a minister within the Defense Ministry to oversee settlement affairs and assume responsibility for areas under COGAT and the Civil Administration.[16] It also envisaged establishing a settlement administration, an arrangement the party viewed as intended to “rectify the injustice done to the settlement population.”[16] The coalition agreement placed the additional minister’s responsibilities in coordination and agreement with the prime minister and included government activity in the territories, the Settlement Division, national service, pre-military academies, and task-force groups.[14]

In February 2023, Smotrich received general responsibilities for settlement planning and enforcement concerning illegal construction in the West Bank, while Defense Minister Yoav Galant retained formal authority to intervene with cause.[2] Smotrich simultaneously held the Finance Ministry and his ministerial position within the Defense Ministry.[2] The party’s allocated responsibilities also extended to the District Coordination and Liaison Offices and the Civil Administration, linking its settlement agenda with specific administrative functions rather than only legislative proposals.[13]

Smotrich advanced the E1 settlement project between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim with the stated aim of preventing a Palestinian state.[3] An estimate reported in the party explainer counted 259 new outposts, including 186 farming outposts, established since he entered office in 2022.[3] The same account reported government approval of more than 100 settlements, including through retroactive legalization.[3] These developments accompanied the party’s continuing advocacy of settlement expansion and Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.[3]

Judicial change was already a prominent element of the party’s 2021 manifesto, which addressed the High Court’s powers, settlements, and religion-and-state matters.[18] Smotrich sought to chair the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and use it to advance legislation enabling the Knesset to override High Court decisions.[18] His proposals also included changing judicial selection and dividing the attorney general’s position into a chief legal adviser and a chief prosecutor.[18] The party later obtained the right to appoint the committee’s chair in the 2022 coalition agreement, with Rothman designated for that position.[13]

A September 2026 judicial-reform program proposed separating the attorney general’s advisory and prosecutorial functions and allowing ministers to appoint their own legal advisers.[3] It also proposed restricting who could petition the High Court and introducing an override clause through which the Knesset could reinstate legislation struck down by the court.[3] Smotrich summarized the intended result by saying, “The government will be able to govern, the Knesset will be able to legislate.”[3] These proposals developed the party’s earlier commitment to limiting the High Court’s ability to invalidate legislation.[4][18]

On economics, Religious Zionism generally advocates lower taxes, reduced regulation, greater competition, and the dismantling of monopolies.[3] Its approach also includes state-intervention proposals, among them childcare subsidies, proposed taxes on bank profits, and public investment in settlements and religious institutions.[3] The 2026 Religious Zionism–Zehut joint list combined commitments to extending control over Judea and Samaria, strengthening security, weakening the judiciary, legalizing marijuana, and promoting private enterprise.[1] Those commitments described the combined electoral list, rather than a platform attributable exclusively to Smotrich’s party.[1]

On military service, Smotrich supports exemptions for full-time yeshiva students while requiring other eligible Haredi men to enlist.[3] In May 2026, he conditioned support for exemption legislation on Haredi leaders endorsing that enlistment requirement.[3] His position was distinct from the separate proposals associated with Zehut despite their electoral partnership.[3] Religious Zionism also supports strengthening Jewish sovereignty and expanding Jewish worship rights on the Temple Mount, where Smotrich has called for a synagogue.[3] Zehut’s separate proposals included removing the Islamic Waqf administration, a position distinguished from the Religious Zionist Party’s own proposals.[3]

The 2022 joint list’s 14-seat result made it the third-largest electoral list in the Knesset and gave Smotrich’s party seven seats within a governing majority.[10][2] Its growth was visible beyond the settlement electorate: the list received 15.7% in Be’er Sheva, 14.2% in Jerusalem, and 13.3% in Ashkelon.[11] Gains also occurred in cities associated with parties of the center-left bloc.[11] The increase from six seats in 2021 to 14 in 2022 therefore reflected support across several urban settings as well as areas where the party’s settlement policies had particular relevance.[11]

The joint list’s expansion coincided with the decline of Yamina–Jewish Home, whose vote share fell from 6.21% in 2021 to 1.19% in 2022 and which failed to cross the electoral threshold.[11] Many new supporters of Religious Zionism–Otzma Yehudit had voted for Yamina in 2021.[11] The two lists’ contrasting results were accompanied by an increase in the Religious Zionism–Otzma Yehudit share from approximately 5.1% to 10.8%.[11] Smotrich’s party thus entered coalition negotiations after an election in which its common slate had substantially enlarged its parliamentary representation.[11][14]

Settlement voting revealed an especially strong concentration of support: the RZP bloc received 22% of settlement votes in 2022, more than twice its national share.[19] Across the five elections from April 2019 through November 2022, support for Otzma Yehudit or the RZP ranged from 17.9% to 27.0% in settlements west of the security barrier.[19] East of the barrier, the corresponding range was 46.2% to 63.7%.[19] Settlement residents nevertheless represented only a small proportion of Israel’s voting population, so these concentrated results did not constitute the whole of the bloc’s electoral base.[19]

The party’s governmental importance extended beyond its own seven seats after the 2022 election through its control of ministerial and parliamentary positions.[13] The Finance Ministry, additional Defense Ministry position, Aliyah and Integration Ministry, national mission ministry, and Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairmanship gave it responsibilities across fiscal policy, settlement administration, immigration, religious-national institutions, and legislative procedure.[13] The combination placed several elements of its longstanding agenda within the remit of offices allocated to its representatives.[13][18]

In a campaign-period essay, party-list candidate David Fine argued that Religious Zionism should represent people who wanted Israel to preserve its Jewish identity and tradition.[20] He presented the party as a force capable of bringing Israelis together and argued that its purpose was not limited to land and military policy.[20] His presentation expressed a candidate’s vision of the party’s broader social role, rather than an independent statement of its platform.[20] The party’s own institutional priorities nevertheless included Jewish education and the state’s Jewish character alongside its settlement and sovereignty policies.[3]

The 2026 alliance with Zehut paired Smotrich’s party with a libertarian-nationalist partner while allowing both organizations to retain separate identities.[1][3] Its six-seat result followed an electoral agreement explicitly intended to avoid votes being lost below the threshold.[3][1] Unlike the outcome after the 2022 election, the 2026 result did not give Netanyahu’s partners the parliamentary majority needed to govern: their combined total stood at 53 seats.[15] The party’s electoral significance consequently depended both on its own slate’s performance and on the overall balance among prospective coalition partners.[15]

The party’s claim to represent the wider religious-national public has drawn criticism from religious Zionists who do not identify with its leadership or political style.[5] Party MK Ohad Tal rejected that criticism and maintained that the party sought to represent the community’s different strands.[5] The religious-Zionist community and electorate are internally diverse rather than a uniform political constituency.[5] In his review, Adam S. Ferziger distinguished the more mainstream Religious Zionist Party from its electoral ally Otzma Yehudit, which he characterized as Kahanist.[21]

The division of settlement-related powers between Smotrich and Galant raised questions about how civilian and national-security considerations would be reconciled in practice.[2] Analysis of the proposed transfer also projected possible acceleration of annexation, increased enforcement against Palestinian construction, and approval of Israeli outposts; these were forecasts about the arrangement’s consequences rather than established outcomes or the party’s own stated position.[16] Other projections concerned coalition stability, Jewish-Arab relations, Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, Jerusalem holy places, and relations with the Biden administration and American Jewish community.[11]

In an opinion essay, Hillel Halkin described Smotrich as a former settler-movement activist and annexation advocate, and criticized the party’s approach toward Arabs as “hypernationalist and Jewish supremacist.”[22] That characterization was the author’s critical judgment, distinct from the party’s self-presentation and its stated policy proposals.[22]