Zein Khalil, Mohammad Sio<\/p>\n
02 September 2026\u2022Update: 02 September 2026<\/p>\n
Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich and Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin agreed Tuesday to run together in Israel\u2019s upcoming Knesset election, forming the first alliance between parties within the country\u2019s right-wing camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am pleased to announce to you that the Religious Zionism Party, under my leadership, and the Identity Party, under the leadership of Moshe Feiglin, have agreed to run together in a technical bloc,\u201d Smotrich said in a statement on US social media platform X.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this critical moment, responsibility is required of us: to unite forces, to expand the camp, and not to allow any voice on the right to go to waste,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Smotrich said Israel \u201cis at fateful moments. The future of the national camp hangs in the balance – the future of settlement, the judicial system, security, and our ability to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian terror state.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are differences between us, and we are not asking to blur them. Each one preserves their identity and their path, but both of us understand that the great mission now is the victory of the national camp,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Smotrich urged all right-wing parties to join the two parties.<\/p>\n
The government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been in office since December 2022. Netanyahu has been wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2024 on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
Smotrich and Feiglin signed an agreement Tuesday to run through a joint technical bloc, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. \u201cThe union is a first step in a broader move to unite forces on the right and is intended ‘to prevent loss of votes,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
In Israeli elections, parties can form a technical bloc to run together to clear the electoral threshold and prevent votes from being lost, while keeping separate identities and political structures rather than merging into a single party.<\/p>\n
The Knesset election is scheduled for Oct. 27, amid declining support in opinion polls for Netanyahu and his Likud party.<\/p>\n
A poll published Sunday by public broadcaster KAN found that Netanyahu\u2019s bloc would win 52 seats if elections were held at that time, compared with 55 for the Jewish opposition and 13 for Arab lawmakers.<\/p>\n
The development comes after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, rejected Netanyahu\u2019s call for an alliance with Smotrich\u2019s party.<\/p>\n
Under Israeli law, a government requires the support of at least 61 members of the 120-seat Knesset to be formed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zein Khalil, Mohammad Sio 02 September 2026\u2022Update: 02 September 2026 Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich and Zehut leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-603275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}