Religious Zionist Party הציונות הדתית | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairman | Bezalel Smotrich |
| Secretary-General | Ofir Sofer |
| Founders | Hanan Porat Zvi Hendel |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Dissolved | 2023 |
| Split from | National Religious Party |
| Merged into | National Religious Party–Religious Zionism |
| Headquarters | Beit HaShenhav Building,Jerusalem, Israel |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right[1][2][9][10][11][12] |
| National affiliation | National Union (1999–2013) The Jewish Home (2013–2019) URWP (2019)[13] Yamina (2019, 2020–2021) |
| Member parties | Otzma Yehudit (formerly) Noam (formerly) |
| Most MKs | 7 (2022) |
| Election symbol | |
| ט ط [14] | |
| Website | |
| zionutdatit | |
TheReligious Zionist Party (Hebrew:הציונות הדתית,romanized: HaTzionut HaDatit,lit. 'The Religious Zionism'), known asTkuma (Hebrew:תקומה,lit. 'Revival')[15] until 2021 and officially known asNational Union–Tkuma (Hebrew:האיחוד הלאומי-תקומה,HaIchud HaLeumi–Tkuma),[16] was afar-right,[1][2]ultra-nationalist,[2]Jewish supremacist,[2] andreligious Zionist[1][2]political party inIsrael.[17] In all the elections since its founding in 1998, the party had joined other factions and competed as part of a united list. In 2023, the Religious Zionist Party andThe Jewish Home agreed to merge to becomeNational Religious Party–Religious Zionism.[18]
Tkuma was established byHanan Porat andZvi Hendel in 1998. The pair left theNational Religious Party in reaction to theWye River Memorandum.[19] Almost immediately after the creation of Tkuma, it joined together withMoledet andHerut – The National Movement, to form theNational Union, a right-wing coalition which won four seats in the1999 elections, with only one of those seats going to Tkuma. These elections were a failure for the right-wing bloc, and were won byEhud Barak, leaving the National Union and Tkuma in the opposition.[20]In February 2000,Yisrael Beiteinu joined the National Union, alongside Tkuma, and the two parties joinedAriel Sharon's first government in 2001. One year later, Tkuma and the rest of the National Union left Sharon's government over disagreements over the handling of theSecond Intifada. For the2003 elections, the National Union kept its alliance with Yisrael Beiteinu, with its increased support helping to win seven seats for the entire list, and two for Tkuma. The party was included inAriel Sharon's coalition, alongsideLikud,Shinui, theNational Religious Party, andYisrael BaAliyah.[21]
Because of tensions over thewithdrawal from the Gaza Strip (Tkuma was ideologically opposed, and Hendel lived in the Gaza settlement ofGanei Tal), National Union ministersBinyamin Elon andAvigdor Lieberman were sacked, and the party left the coalition. However, the National Union was bolstered by the addition ofAhi, which had split off from the National Religious Party when they decided to remain in the coalition.[22]
Before the2006 elections, the alliance between the National Union and Yisrael Beiteinu was dissolved, and a new alliance between the National Union and the National Religious Party was formed, which won nine seats, two of which were allocated to Tkuma and taken by Hendel andUri Ariel.[23]
On 3 November 2008, ahead of the2009 elections, Tkuma faced a crisis. The party itself announced that it would unite with Ahi, the National Religious Party, and Moledet, to form a new right-wing party,[24] which was later namedthe Jewish Home. However, around half of the former Tkuma members later left the new party to re-establish Tkuma and rejoin the National Union alongsideMoledet,Hatikva, andEretz Yisrael Shelanu.[25] In the elections themselves, the National Union got four seats, with Tkuma getting two seats.
Ahead of the2013 elections, the National Union split, with all member parties except for Tkuma splitting off to formOtzma LeYisrael, leaving Tkuma as the only party left in the National Union. Tkuma proceeded to change its name to "National Union–Tkuma", appropriating the National Union name. The party opted to run as part of the Jewish Home list for the2013 elections. The Jewish Home won 12 seats, four of which (Ariel,Ben-Dahan,Kalfa, andStrook) were members of Tkuma. The party decided to continue its alliance with the Jewish Home for the2015 Knesset elections,[26] taking the 2nd, 8th, 13th, and 17th spots on the joint list.[27] The Jewish Home dropped to eight seats in that election.[28]
In 2019Bezalel Smotrich took over party leadership, winning party elections in a landslide against Ariel.[29] Ahead of theApril 2019 elections, the party joined with the Jewish Home andOtzma Yehudit to create theUnion of Right-Wing Parties, which won five seats in the elections,[30] two of which went to National Union–Tkuma.[citation needed]
Ahead of theSeptember 2019 elections, Tkuma and the Jewish Home agreed to form an alliance with theNew Right, calledYamina,[31] with Tkuma leader Smotrich receiving the third spot on the joint list.[32]
Yamina officially split on 10 October 2019 into two Knesset factions – the New Right, and the Jewish Home–National Union.[33] For the2020 elections, Otzma Yehudit and The Jewish Home agreed on 20 December to run together,[34] in an alliance later named the United Jewish Home.[35] Smotrich was critical of the move, stating that it was unlikely that the alliance would pass theelectoral threshold.[36] Tkuma,The Jewish Home, and theNew Right reformed Yamina on 15 January 2020.[37] On 22 April 2020 it was reported that Yamina leaderNaftali Bennett was now "considering all options" for Yamina's political future, including departing from Netanyahu's government, which had just agreed to a coalition government with the leader of the opposition Blue and White party,Benny Gantz, and joining the opposition. Bennett was said to be unhappy with the new coalition government's decision to hold back on the issue ofjudicial reform.[38]
On 14 May 2020 The Jewish Home's only Knesset member,Rafi Peretz, ended his status as a member of Yamina, and agreed to join Netanyahu's new government as well.[39][40] On 15 May, Tkuma, along with the New Right, split with Netanyahu and made the Yamina alliance a member of the opposition. On 17 May 2020 Bennett met with Gantz, who also succeeded him as defence minister, and declared that the Yamina party would be a member of the opposition, with its "head held high".[41] Tkuma was renamed on 7 January,[17] while it ended its membership in Yamina on 20 January 2021.[42]
In February 2021 the party agreed to run a shared list for the2021 Knesset elections withNoam and Otzma Yehudit.[43] The list ran under the Religious Zionist Party name and won six seats,[44] four of which were filled by Religious Zionist Party members.[citation needed] On 14 June, after the swearing-in of the 36th government, MK Ofir Sofer split from the Likud faction and merged into the Religious Zionist Party, increasing the number of seats held by the party to seven. He had run during the election as part of theLikud list for Knesset, as a member ofAtid Ehad party, using it as a shelf party (a dormant, but still-registered, party brought back into use).[45][46]
The Religious Zionist Party,Noam andOtzma Yehudit submitted a single list on 14 September 2022 ahead of the2022 Knesset elections,[47] which saw the alliance win 14 seats. The parties split into three parties in the Knesset on 20 November 2022.[48]
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| Far-right politics in Israel |
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The Religious Zionist Party is opposed to any territorial concessions toPalestinian or Syrian claims for land. Some members support theannexation of the entire West Bank, though the official policy of the Jewish Home parliamentary faction, of which the party was aligned between 2013 and 2019, only supports annexation ofArea C of the West Bank, which makes up the 63% of land in the West Bank allocated to Israel in the Oslo Accords.[49][50] The party is opposed torecognition of same-sex marriage on areligious basis.[51] The party advocates for increased funding forTorah study and religious education.[52] Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg has stated that the Religious Zionist Party's "platform includes things likeannexation of West Bank settlements, the expulsion of asylum-seekers, and political control of the judicial system".[2] He further described the Religious Zionist Party as a political party "driven byJewish supremacy andanti-Arab racism".[2] The party has been assessed byThe Middle East Journal as "militantly anti-Arab" andfar-right.[1]
| Leader | Took office | Left office | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .JPG) | Hanan Porat | 1998 | 1999 |
| 2 | .JPG) | Zvi Hendel | 1999 | 2009 |
| 3 | _(cropped).jpg) | Ya'akov Katz | 2009 | 2012 |
| 4 |  | Uri Ariel | 2012 | 2019 |
| 5 | .jpg) | Bezalel Smotrich | 2019 | 2023 |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Hanan Porat | Part of theNational Union | 1 / 120 | – | Opposition(1999–2001) | |
| Coalition(2001–2003) | ||||||
| 2003 | Zvi Hendel | 2 / 120 |  1 | Coalition(2003–2004) | ||
| Opposition(2004–2006) | ||||||
| 2006 | Part of theNU–NRP | 2 / 120 |  | Opposition | ||
| 2009 | Ya'akov Katz | Part of theNational Union | 2 / 120 | | Opposition | |
| 2013 | Uri Ariel | Part ofthe Jewish Home | 4 / 120 | 2 | Coalition | |
| 2015 | 2 / 120 |  2 | Coalition | |||
| Apr 2019 | Bezalel Smotrich | Part of theURWP | 2 / 120 | | Snap election | |
| Sep 2019 | Part ofYamina | 2 / 120 | | Snap election | ||
| 2020 | 2 / 120 | | Opposition | |||
| 2021[a] | WithOtzma Yehudit andNoam | 4 / 120 | 2 | Opposition | ||
| 2022[b] | 7 / 120 | 3 | Coalition | |||
| Knesset term | Seats | Members |
|---|---|---|
| 2015–2019 | 2 | Uri Ariel,Bezalel Smotrich |
| 2019 | 2 | Bezalel Smotrich,Ofir Sofer |
| 2019–2020 | 2 | Bezalel Smotrich,Ofir Sofer |
| 2020–2021 | 2 | Bezalel Smotrich,Ofir Sofer |
| 2021–2022 | 5 | Bezalel Smotrich,Michal Waldiger,Simcha Rothman,Orit Strook,Ofir Sofer[c] |
| 2022–2023 | 7 | Bezalel Smotrich,Ofir Sofer,Orit Strook,Simcha Rothman,Michal Waldiger,Ohad Tal,Moshe Solomon,Zvi Sukkot (replaced Smotrich on 5 February 2023)[53] |
... a political backlash that helped a militantly anti-Arab, far-right Religious Zionist Party to become the third-largest faction ...
(in Hebrew)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
