Union of Right-Wing Parties

The alliance was assembled before Israel’s April 2019 election, amid concern that smaller right-wing parties running separately might fail to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold and leave votes unused. Netanyahu encouraged Jewish Home to include Otzma Yehudit, seeking to improve the prospects of parties viewed as natural partners for a Likud-led government.[1][2]

Jewish Home was a national-religious party led by Rafi Peretz. Its joint list incorporated National Union and Otzma Yehudit, while Bezalel Smotrich led the National Union/Tkuma component. The Congressional Research Service described the three-party merger as right-of-center and said its religious-Zionist base included core constituencies supporting settlements in the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—and annexation.[6][7]

The parties filed their joint slate with Israel’s Central Elections Committee on February 21, 2019. Contemporary coverage described the arrangement as a “technical bloc.”[8]

The negotiations proceeded in stages. On February 15, Tkuma and Jewish Home agreed to form a list, with Tkuma receiving every other seat; a few days later, Jewish Home and Otzma Yehudit also agreed to run together. Netanyahu pressed for the arrangement, and the Jewish Home central committee approved it despite sharp criticism.[1][9]

The proposed merger included political incentives. Netanyahu promised Jewish Home two cabinet ministries to help secure the agreement, while the factions were also promised the education and housing portfolios and two seats in the security cabinet in return for joining.[2][10] Netanyahu additionally promised Jewish Home cabinet positions.[1]

Jewish Home leader Rafi Peretz headed the combined list, followed by National Union chair Bezalel Smotrich, Moti Yogev, Ofir Sofer, and Michael Ben-Ari.[3] Peretz had been elected to lead Jewish Home in February 2019 after Naftali Bennett left the party. Born in Jerusalem in 1956, he was an Orthodox rabbi who served as Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces from 2010 to 2016 and had previously been a helicopter pilot in the Israeli Air Force.[6][7]

Before his political leadership, Peretz founded a pre-military Torah academy in Gush Katif in 1993 and lived in Gaza until the 2005 Disengagement Plan required the relocation of his home and the academy. Although he opposed the plan, he drew national attention by embracing soldiers who came to evict his community, a gesture described as expressing his belief in unity in the IDF.[6]

Other proposed partners did not join the slate. Negotiations to add Eli Yishai failed shortly before candidate lists were submitted, with his place on the list reported as the apparent point of disagreement.[9] Netanyahu also summoned senior Jewish Home and National Union figures and offered them an extensive package of benefits. A place on the Likud list was reserved for Eli Ben-Dahan, who represented the alliance.[4]

The alliance’s political base and platform centered on religious Zionism, settlement constituencies, and opposition to Palestinian statehood west of the Jordan River. A pre-election guide described the alliance as a prominent political representative of Israeli settlers and said it emphasized Israel’s biblical and religious connections to land Palestinians seek for a state.[7][11]

The Center for Israel Education characterized positions among the component parties as including limits on Palestinian rights in Israel and, in Otzma Yehudit’s case, expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and Judea and Samaria.[6]

Smotrich, number two on the list and leader of its National Union/Tkuma component, pressed Netanyahu on extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. He reminded Netanyahu that he had promised to extend sovereignty and said, “That promise must be kept.” The alliance’s leaders supported extending Israeli sovereignty, placing the slate within the broader debate over annexation and the future of the territory.[10]

At the campaign launch, Peretz and Smotrich presented a united front, while Jewish Home and National Union campaigned separately from Otzma Yehudit. Otzma Yehudit representatives and supporters were not visible at the launch, though the party’s name appeared on alliance signs and other materials. The campaign sought to broaden its appeal beyond its settler base. Peretz used the slogan “Committed to more” and said the commitment was to all of Israel, highlighting support for peripheral towns, especially communities near the Gaza border, as the leading item on his proposed security platform. He also urged Netanyahu to stop using “proportional” measures against Hamas; annexation received less emphasis at the launch than pledges concerning peripheral communities.[12]

Peretz said he intended Jewish Home and National Union to separate from Otzma Yehudit the day after the election, though he declined to promise that they would do so. Before agreeing to the bloc, he said he raised concerns about “price tag” attacks against Palestinians or property, attacks or disparagement of IDF soldiers, and whether the alliance would encourage harm to innocent Arabs. Peretz said Otzma Yehudit’s leaders opposed such actions, and Itamar Ben-Gvir confirmed Peretz’s account.[8]

In the April 9, 2019 election for the 21st Knesset, the Union of Right-Wing Parties received 159,468 votes, or 3.70% of the vote, and won five of the Knesset’s 120 seats.[3]

The alliance’s support was concentrated in several communities. It received 90% of votes in Bnei Netzarim, 89% in Naveh, and 88% in Shomria—communities that included evacuees from Gush Katif settlements, some displaced during the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza. It also received 86% in Yitzhar and 40–45% at polling stations in and around Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, near the Mercaz Harav yeshiva.[13]

A Jerusalem election account recorded 4% for the alliance across Israel and 7% in Jerusalem, compared with 1% in Tel Aviv and 2% in Haifa. In Jerusalem, Yahadut HaTorah, Shas, and the Union together received 44% of votes; their combined national figure was 16%, not the Union’s individual result.[14] In separate analysis of voting inside Israel’s security barrier, the Washington Institute grouped the alliance with Yemin Hehadash, Israel Beiteinu, and Zehut: together those parties received 24.98%, compared with Likud’s 20.7%. The source did not provide the Union’s individual share in that comparison.[15]

During the campaign, the Supreme Court barred Michael Ben-Ari, listed fifth, from participating, citing incitement and racism.[16] In a 2–1 decision, the Court also rejected Itamar Ben-Gvir’s request to move into Ben-Ari’s fifth-place slot; Ben-Gvir was seventh after the disqualification, and the Court had not yet published its reasoning at the time of the report. Peretz responded that the Court was interfering with voters’ will and said the alliance would seek to return it to its judicial role.[17]

After the election, Netanyahu was designated to form a coalition but could not reach agreements sufficient to command at least 61 seats. A majority of the new Knesset then voted to dissolve itself and call another election, a move intended to prevent President Reuven Rivlin from turning to another candidate to form a government.[18]

The alliance’s partnership with Otzma Yehudit soon came under strain over the arrangement for entering the Knesset. The agreement provided for ministers to resign their Knesset seats under the Norwegian Law if Ben-Gvir did not enter. After Peretz and Smotrich were appointed ministers in a caretaker government, the arrangement could not legally be implemented as planned. Otzma Yehudit wanted them to leave their seats anyway so Ben-Gvir could enter while they remained ministers.[4]

Ben-Gvir subsequently wrote to Peretz that Otzma Yehudit was ending the partnership and pursuing other alliances. The letter was described as effectively canceling the partnership, although Ben-Gvir did not explicitly rule out another joint run with Jewish Home. His accusations that Otzma Yehudit had been treated unfairly were reported as his claims, not as independently established findings.[4]

In July, Jewish Home and National Union signed a new joint-run agreement with the New Right, led by Ayelet Shaked, who was to head the list; Otzma Yehudit was not included.[19] After the New Right failed to cross the threshold in April, it joined those parties in the subsequent United Right grouping, which was branded Yamina for the September 2019 election and won seven seats. This later alliance was distinct from the April slate.[18][20]

The inclusion of Otzma Yehudit was the alliance’s most prominent controversy. The ADL described the merger as bringing the party onto a mainstream electoral list and warned of the dangers of that development.[5] The arrangement also drew condemnation in Israel, Britain, and the American pro-Israel community, with the criticism linked to Otzma Yehudit’s Kahanist ideology.[1] The Congressional Research Service characterized the party as extreme in the view of many mainstream Israeli observers and described it as ideologically related to Kach; these remain attributed assessments rather than uncontested labels.[2]

The controversy also shaped the campaign’s public presentation: Jewish Home and National Union appeared together while Otzma Yehudit kept a lower profile at the launch, even as its name remained on campaign materials.[12] Despite the merger, Otzma Yehudit did not rank high enough on the joint list to enter the Knesset. In the next two elections it ran independently and failed to pass the electoral threshold.[21]

The alliance was a short-lived electoral arrangement that secured five seats and enabled its constituent parties to contest the April 2019 election on a single slate.[3] Its formation reflected the strategic use of a joint list to meet the electoral threshold and pursue coalition influence, while its policy commitments and inclusion of Otzma Yehudit made it a focus of wider political debate.[1][2]