Despite Bennett’s best efforts, the Bayit Yehudi’s new list is one in which legendary party leader and education minister Zevulun Hammer wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.

In recent days, Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett has taken to calling Labor-Hatnua “The Alignment,” Labor’s name from 1965-1968 and 1969-1991, along with saying the Left is stuck in the nineties, in order to send a message that they are the party of the past.

After Thursday’s primary results, Labor-Hatnua can start calling Bayit Yehudi “The National Religious Party,” its name from 1956-2008. Continue Reading 

Senior Yisrael Beytenu MKs are dropping like flies, but the party’s foundation – Liberman – is still strong.

When Yisrael Beytenu reveals its list for the next Knesset next Monday, the press will probably report that Avigdor Liberman chose it.

Then, the party’s spokespeople will inevitably send messages to reporters asking for corrections, as it did last time, which will go something like this: “Avigdor Liberman does not choose the list himself! We have an organizing committee!” To be fair, Yisrael Beytenu has an organizing committee to which candidates must send applications, but it would not release the names of its members when these lines were written and it seems to be inordinately influenced by Liberman – just like almost everything else in Yisrael Beytenu.

There are a few independent voices in the party – MK Orly Levy-Abecasis, an award-winning parliamentarian who is active on social issues, stands out more than anyone else – but, it would not be far-fetched to say most of the MKs do Liberman’s bidding most of the time. Yisrael Beytenu is mostly The Liberman Show.

That’s why, despite top Beytenu MKs falling like dominoes – Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Tourism Minister Uzi Landau, Deputy Interior Minister and party secretary-general Faina Kirschenbaum and Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee chairman David Rotem all say they will not run for the next Knesset, and Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir is rumored to be next – that problem is an optical illusion, not a real, structural one. The party’s foundations – a.k.a. Liberman – are still standing. Continue Reading

The real debate in the primary is over a question that has plagued Bayit Yehudi MKs for the past two years: What does being a religious-Zionist mean?

Screenshot of a viral video campaign in which Naftali Bennett tells Israelis to stop apologizing.

When registration for Bayit  Yehudi’s January 14 primary closed Wednesday and when its membership drive closed last month with 20,000 new members, the party proudly touted its diversity.

More members come from central cities – especially Tel Aviv – or the periphery than from Judea and Samaria, and candidates come from all over the country! Most members are under 34, and many candidates are under 40! Out of 42 candidates, 11 are women – including Anett Haskia, an Arab Zionist with kids in the IDF – and two are Druse! There are also eight Sephardic contenders, by The Jerusalem Post’s count.

Plenty of candidates had little to do with Bayit Yehudi before the party opened the primary to anyone who joins, without a waiting period.

Some moved from other political homes to Bayit Yehudi – like Im Tirzu founder Ronen Shoval, who was affiliated with Yisrael Beytenu; and former Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip chairman Danny Dayan and attorney Yossi Fuchs, both ex-Likudniks.

The party even has a reality TV star, Akiva Shmuely, who fans of Israel’s version of The Amazing Race (“The Race to the Million”) know as Shushi, the nickname by which his wife and partner in the competition call him.

He worked for former Bayit Yehudi leader Daniel Herschkowitz briefly, but was not involved in party politics in the last two years.

If candidates were broken down into archetypes, party leader Naftali Bennett would probably want his list to include faction chairwoman Ayelet Shaked, his closest ally, and plenty of fresh faces but also loyal old-timers, like Senior Citizens Affairs Minister Uri Orbach.

He’d want someone secular in addition to Shaked, like Shoval or Dayan; a new woman – he seems to favor Peace Now activist-turnedright- winger Anat Roth; an immigrant – US-born Uri Bank has his endorsement; and someone new but loyal, like former IDF chief rabbi Avihai Ronzki, who backed Bennett and Shaked in the last election.

However, the diversity in Bennett’s ideal Bayit Yehudi exists only up to a point.

After all, the party has to rally around something to set it apart from the others.

Those rallying points show, as Bayit Yehudi’s slogan goes, that the candidates have “no apologies” about the party’s core issues. Continue Reading 

Bayit Yehudi, Meretz put out special New Year videos for voters from the Former Soviet Union, while Likud’s Edelstein doubts “the Russian vote” exists as a bloc.

“Noviy God,” the Gregorian New Year, is an important day on the calendars of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, which includes a big family meal,and an opportunity for politicians to pander to Russian- speaking voters.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu has long been a popular, and maybe the most popular political party among immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

However, with some of the party’s senior officials, including Yisrael Beytenu Secretary-General and Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum under investigation, some other parties see a window of opportunity to bring in Russian votes. Continue Reading

Campaign videos went viral on YouTube and social media in recent weeks as candidates tried to outdo each other.

Western. Mafia. Superheroes. Comedy. Cartoons. Those all may be familiar film genres, but now they’re also types of campaign videos.

Candidates in Bayit Yehudi and Likud found very creative ways to present their positions to voters in the party primaries on January 14 and Wednesday, respectively. Campaign videos went viral on YouTube and social media in recent weeks as they tried to outdo each other. Continue Reading 

Yesha Council foreign envoy Danny Dayan sees himself as Naftali Bennett’s ideological mentor, and seeks to promote their views in the Knesset.

With over 50 contenders for slots on Bayit Yehudi’s list for the next Knesset, and the number growing every day, the list of primary candidates seems to have become a blur of crocheted kippot and other head coverings.

There’s one name on the list that stands out as the best-known, and it happens to be someone bare-headed: former Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (Yesha) head Danny Dayan. Continue reading

Liberman’s party traditionally got a boost from investigations of its officials, but his recent centrist turn could buck the trend.

Upon learning about the corruption scandal rocking Yisrael Beytenu Wednesday morning, one may be tempted to think that this couldn’t have come at a worse time for the party, in the middle of an election campaign.

Resist that temptation.

Yisrael Beytenu has historically been the political embodiment of the adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity;” police investigations have thus far helped Yisrael Beytenu electorally. Continue reading

The popular, active female MK tipped the scales toward Bennett and away from Tekuma’s rabbis.

Tekuma’s vote to remain on the Bayit Yehudi list, instead of defecting to Eli Yishai’s Yahad Ha’am Itanu party, showed that, contrary to its reputation, the party does not put its rabbis’ word before all else.

The “hardal” or religious-Zionist- leaning-toward-haredi party seeks guidance from several like-minded rabbis, the most high-profile of which is Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior, who strongly supported running with Yishai. However, Tekuma went against his ruling and Lior is looking for a new political partner.

What comes ahead of the rabbis for Tekuma’s central committee? Foremost, it seems, staying in a position of influence in a party that will surely pass the electoral threshold and for Construction Minister Uri Ariel, the party’s leader, to have a good shot at remaining a minister – though Ariel’s relationship with Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett had soured to the point that he was apparently willing to give both of those up to take part in Yishai’s experiment.

But something else was more important to Tekuma’s central committee than the rabbis’ word: The role of women in the party – or, more specifically, the role of one woman. If Tekuma had chosen to run with Yahad Ha’am Itanu, it would not have been able to have a woman on its list, as Yishai’s Rabbi Meir Mazuz says that would be problematic.

And if no woman can run on Tekuma’s list, that means Struck would be out of the picture. Continue reading

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman continued to look toward the center of the political map with his statement about Israel needing to take a diplomatic initiative Tuesday.

While calling for the government to go on a diplomatic offensive is not an inherently Right, Left or centrist statement, Liberman clearly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he said “standing in place is dangerous for Israel.” Continue Reading

Lahav discusses how the motivations of Palestinian terrorists have little to do with Israeli actions.