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Otzma Yehudit () is a far-right, ultranationalist, Kahanism, and Anti-Arab racism political party in Israel. It is the ideological descendant of the outlawed Kach party.
The party advocates for the deportation of those who they consider to be the "enemies of Israel", and leader Itamar Ben-Gvir was associated with the original Kach movement, though he now disagrees with the stance of deporting all Arabs from Israel. The party has been widely described in the international press as an extremist, ultranationalist, and racist organisation supporting Jewish supremacy and has been described by multiple sources, including the Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz, as a "Jewish fascist group".
Otzma ran independently in the 2013 election and as part of a list with ultra-Orthodox party Yachad in 2015. Though in both elections Otzma did not manage to pass the electoral threshold, the Yachad list was around 10,000 votes short of the threshold. Ahead of the first 2019 election, the party ran with the Jewish Home as part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, after Naftali Bennett abandoned the Jewish Home to form the New Right party. While the Union of Right-Wing Parties passed the threshold, winning five seats, Otzma only held the seventh spot on the list, as their other representative Michael Ben-Ari was banned for incitement. After Ben-Ari was banned, Ben-Gvir was appointed leader of the party.
The party ran independently in the second 2019 election, winning 1.88% of the vote, though some polls had predicted that the party would pass the threshold. Despite coming to an agreement with the Jewish Home to contest the 2020 Israeli legislative election as the United Jewish Home, Otzma was left to run independently when the Jewish Home, the New Right, and Tkuma re-formed Yamina. In the 2021 election, Otzma ran on a joint list with the Religious Zionist Party and Noam, as part of a deal orchestrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that would include the list receiving an extra seat from the Likud list. Following the 2021 election, Ben-Gvir won a seat, with the deal considered to have brought the party into the mainstream of Israeli politics. The party won an additional five seats in the 2022 elections. The party gained an additional seat in January 2025, but lost it in April as National Religious Party–Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot re-entered the Knesset and replaced Otzma MK Almog Cohen.
Eldad was first elected to the Knesset on the National Union list in 2003. In November 2007, Eldad formed a new secular far-right party named Hatikva. Ultimately, Hatikva ran as a faction of the National Union in the 2009 elections, and Eldad retained his seat. Ben-Ari ran for Knesset unsuccessfully in the 2003 elections with the Herut – The National Movement party, and in the 2006 elections with the Jewish National Front party; both times, the parties failed to pass the threshold. Leading up to the 2009 elections, the Jewish National Front, headed by a long-time Kach party activist Baruch Marzel, allied with Eretz Yisrael Shelanu, a new party founded by Chabad Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo. The joint list ran as part of the National Union, with Michael Ben-Ari, its representative, taking the fourth spot on the alliance's list. The National Union won four seats, allowing Ben-Ari to enter the Knesset.
Eldad, a secular hard-liner, and Ben-Ari, an Orthodox Jew and former Kach activist, decided to form the new faction Otzma LeYisrael in October 2012, before the 2013 election, after months of infighting within the National Union, over if the party should hold primaries or not. Eldad was chosen to lead the party's list, followed by Ben-Ari and Marzel; the party was officially formed as a breakaway of the National Union on 13 November 2013. The party has affiliations with, and shared their office with, the anti-assimilation group Lehava, whose Director-General Bentzi Gopstein is a member of the party. The office of Lehava and Otzma Yehudit was raided in 2014. The party's anthem is the "Jingle of Otzma LeYisrael".
The party advocates for increased emphasis on the teaching of Jewish history in all elementary schools to "deepen Jewish identity in students". The party is against "freezing construction of Jewish settlements, releasing terrorists, or negotiating with the PA". The party advocates deportation of "Arab extremists". On 24 February 2019, party member Itamar Ben Gvir called for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel. In 2022, current leader Ben-Gvir endorsed deporting the Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh, as well as the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect, "on a train." As part of his 2022 campaign he also advocated for giving full immunity to soldiers. While his party advocates for deportations, Ben-Gvir stated he was wrong when he held the position in his youth that all Arabs should be expelled.
The party advocates what it calls "Jewish capitalism" as its economic system, and claims that its approach would save "billions of shekels from the reduction of the defense budget following the removal of the enemy", which would be directed at infrastructure development, reducing bureaucracy and regulations, as well as allocating resources to strengthen "weak populations". The party also supports aiding the elderly and disabled. The party is also opposed to abortion. The party supports easing restrictions on the IDFs rules of engagement. As part of a political merger with The Jewish Home, the party pledged to oppose price tag attacks.
In 2015, the party chose to contest the 2015 Knesset election as part of a joint list with Yachad; Baruch Marzel was the only candidate from the party to run on the list. There was a conflict during the negotiations between the parties due to Yachad being worried that if the parties ran on a list together, and failed to pass the threshold, it would put the right-wing coalition at risk. It was speculated before the election that the joint list would win as many as five seats in the Knesset. Though in the election, Yachad only won 125,106 votes (2.97%) votes, falling short of the 3.25% threshold needed for winning seats in the Knesset. Members of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party were accused of tampering with the ballots of Yachad, as well as creating a straw party with the election symbol of Otzma Yehudit to trick Yachad voters. After the elections, the party announced that they were planning on establishing an alternative media source. Michael Ben-Ari also said that the party was unsure if it planned on competing in other elections, instead hoping to focus on extra-parliamentary activism.
On 5 November 2018, the party announced it was running for the April 2019 Israeli legislative election. They also launched a crowd-funding page to fund their campaign. The funding campaign resulted in the party receiving NIS 820,000. After Naftali Bennett announced that he was leaving The Jewish Home party to form the New Right party, Otzma Yehudit called on Bezalel Smotrich and Eli Yishai to create an Orthodox-nationalist bloc for running in the 2019 elections.
In January 2019, the party entered talks with the Tkuma party in order to create an alliance. In February, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached out to Otzma Yehudit in an attempt to try and get the party to run on a list with Tkuma and The Jewish Home, leading to criticism from opposition Knesset members. The chairman of Tkuma, Bezalel Smotrich, responded by saying that the Likud should merge with Otzma Yehudit. Negotiations for a joint list with Tkuma ended on 11 February 2019, and Otzma Yehudit indicated it would run with another party instead. On 20 February 2019, Otzma Yehudit and The Jewish Home reached a deal that would give Otzma Yehudit the 5th and 8th seats in a technical bloc. On 21 February 2019, the party announced that their candidates for the list would be Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir. On 17 March 2019, Ben-Ari was banned from running for the Knesset ahead of the April 2019 Israeli legislative election. In response, Ben-Ari stated: "We will win. This is not the end... We will put an end to the judicial junta."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's role in brokering the deal with Jewish Home was widely condemned; American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Committee preemptively announced that even if Otzma Yehudit entered the government, they would not meet with them. The former noted in a tweet that "AIPAC has a long-standing policy not to meet with members of this racist and reprehensible party". On 25 June 2019, Otzma Yehudit split from the Union of Right-Wing Parties. Ben-Gvir was expected to enter the government after Netanyahu had agreed to pass a form of the Norwegian law, though Netanyahu's failure to form a government, and Peretz' refusal to resign his Knesset seat, made it impossible. Subsequently, it was reported that the party had discussed alliances for the September 2019 elections with former Likud MK Oren Hazan, Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin, and New Right leader Ayelet Shaked. Despite initially partnering with the Noam party, the two parties split over Otzma's insistence on fielding a secular candidate, and Otzma chose to run independently.
On 21 August 2019, Otzma Yehudit and Likud submitted an ultimately unsuccessful petition to the Supreme Court requesting that the Joint List be banned from contesting the September 2019 elections. On 25 August 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that Otzma Yehudit candidates Baruch Marzel and Gopstein were banned from running in the September 2019 elections. On 26 August 2019, Likud representative Natan Eshel met with Ben-Gvir to urge Otzma Yehudit to drop out of the race. However, Ben-Gvir subsequently claimed that he had requested the meeting to enlist Likud's assistance for the Otzma campaign, on the grounds that Netanyahu would be unable to command a Knesset majority unless Otzma passed the electoral threshold. Otzma did not pass the electoral threshold, winning 1.88% of the vote. On 20 December 2019, Otzma Yehudit and the Jewish Home party agreed to run on a joint list called the United Jewish Home ahead of the 2020 Israeli legislative election. On 15 January 2020, the New Right, Tkuma and the Jewish Home reformed Yamina, leaving Otzma outside of the list. The party failed to cross the threshold.
On 31 January 2021, Otzma Yehudit formed a joint list with Noam ahead of the 2021 Israeli legislative election. Ben-Gvir and Noam head Avi Maoz urged The Jewish Home and the Religious Zionist Party to also unite with Otzma Yehudit. The Religious Zionist Party subsequently did so on 3 February. Ahead of the 2022 election, with Otzma rising in polls they sought to increase their representation within the Religious Zionist Party list. However, Smotrich denied their candidate the 7th spot on the list, spurring Ben-Gvir to announce a solo run. This caused the leader of opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu, to publicly encourage the list to reunite to avoid losing right-wing votes to the threshold. Following the initial split, Otzma had been polling higher than the Religious Zionist party; after Netanyahu called for a reunification of the list, Otzma publicly offered a rotating list with Smotrich as the leader, and every other seat going to Otzma. The party also hired a political campaigning firm named "C.I.Y Global", which was founded by former Mossad chief Danny Yatom, to help with its election campaign. Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party reunited and also included a candidate from Noam in a last minute move before the deadline for list submissions. The party won six seats, while the broader joint list won 14 seats in total.
On 1 February 2019, during a stone-throwing incident outside the Adei Ad settlement during the unrest following a death in the village of al-Mughayyir the previous week, "over a hundred residents" of the village were photographed by an Otzma Yehudit photographer as part of the project, with the intention of handing it over to the IDF and the police, alongside an appeal to "liquidate the terrorist nest" of the neighboring village.
| Aryeh Eldad | 2012 | 2013 | ||
| Michael Ben-Ari | 2013 | 2019 | ||
| Itamar Ben-Gvir | 2019 | Incumbent |
| 2013 | Aryeh Eldad | 64,782 | 1.76 | 2 | ||
| 2015 | Michael Ben-Ari | Part of Yachad | – | |||
| April 2019 | Part of the URWP | – | ||||
| September 2019 | Itamar Ben-Gvir | 83,609 | 1.88 | – | ||
| 2020 | 19,402 | 0.42 | – | |||
| 2021 | Part of the RZP | 1 | ||||
| 2022 | Itamar Ben-Gvir | Part of the RZP | 5 | (2022 – January 2025) | ||
| (January 2025 – March 2025) | ||||||
| (March 2025–) | ||||||
| + !Knesset !Members !Notes | ||
| 18th | Aryeh Eldad, Michael Ben-Ari | Party breaks away from the National Union in 2012 |
| 24th | Itamar Ben-Gvir | Serving under the Religious Zionist Party |
| 25th | Itamar Ben-Gvir, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Almog Cohen (replaced by Mafdal-RZ MK Zvi Sukkot on 6 April 2025), Amihai Eliyahu (replaced by Yitzhak Kroizer on 1 January 2023), Zvika Fogel, Limor Son Har-Melech | Serving under the Religious Zionist Party (until 20 November 2022) |
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