Hailed by supporters as “the next prime minister”, he demurred: “I’m 46,” he said. “Not yet prime minister” Exit polls on all three major television networks showed the joint slate of Otzma Yehudit’s party with Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party winning between 14 and 15 seats. With one poll predicting a narrow 61-seat majority for the Likud, Religious Zionist, Shas and United Torah Judaism parties and the other two polls giving the right-wing, religious bloc a more comfortable 62 seats, the results will be some of the best supporters of Otzma Yehudit might ask if they proved accurate. With ballot counting still in its early stages, Ben Gvir made it clear that it was too early to know whether the bloc of right-wing, religious parties had secured a majority. Get The Times of Israel Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories By signing up, you agree to the terms “I remember the celebrations in the last election that ended with a Raham government,” he said as the crowd of hundreds in Jerusalem’s Vert Hotel ballroom booed at the reference to the Islamist party that was the last piece of the disparate coalition to fall. separately in June after a year. However, he tried to strike a relatively conciliatory tone during parts of his speech: “I want to say to those who did not vote for me: We are all brothers,” Ben Gvir said at the headquarters of the Otzma Yehudit subgroup in Jerusalem. The election headquarters of the Otzma Yehudit party after the announcement of the exit poll results, November 1, 2022. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel) Speaking two hours after the exit polls were published, Ben Gvir argued that his merger with Smotrich had succeeded in serving a variety of Jewish voters. “We represent everyone: secular and religious, Haredi and traditional, Sephardi and Ashkenazi.” “Everyone wants real change,” Ben Gvir said to cheers, and “a leadership that will preserve the Land of Israel … and settle Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical names. Vowing to “act against oil bombs and stone throwers”, he noted that he would fight to distinguish between Zionists and those working “to undermine our existence here”, to which the crowd responded with chants of “Death to terrorists!” . “It’s time for our children to be able to walk the streets safely,” Ben Gvir continued. “It’s time to reclaim ownership of this state.” The far-right MK also thanked its former political partner Benzie Gopstein, head of the racist and homophobic organization Lehava. The two clashed briefly during the most recent campaign, with Gopstein and other members of Otzma Yehudit’s original leadership accusing Ben Gvir of eschewing the values on which the party was founded. Lehava president Benzi Gopstein, right, and his lawyer (now MK), Itamar Ben Gvir, left, arrive at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, June 8, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/File) “We don’t agree on everything, but he’s my friend,” Ben Gvir said, as Gopstein nodded from the back of the room. Gopstein was barred from running for the Knesset in 2020. His organization Lehava opposes intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, as well as LGBTQ rights, and tries to stifle any public activity by non-Jews in Israel, including coexistence events. Party headquarters erupted with excitement after exit polls were released at 10:00 p.m., which showed the party making significant gains. Jewish party music begins to swell as the ballots appear on the projector screen of the Vert Hotel ballroom, and over a hundred young men begin dancing and waving Israeli flags. About a dozen of their peers were scattered toward the back of the ballroom, clapping along with them. As in the 2021 election, when Ra’am managed to pass the electoral threshold after failing to do so in the exit polls, a similar scenario could unfold again on Wednesday. At least one Arab party, Balad, was just below the electoral threshold, and a second or third Arab party entering the Knesset alongside Raham could tip the scales toward a split between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs. Still, there was reason for Otzma Yehudit to be very optimistic: Voter turnout nationwide on Tuesday was 71.3 percent — the highest since 2015, which bodes poorly for the anti-Netanyahu bloc because of the large number of small parties that may fall below the electoral threshold. Religious Zionist MK Itamar Ben Gvir votes at a polling station in Kiryat Arba settlement on November 1, 2022. (Courtesy) Tuesday’s race was the second consecutive election in which Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Avi Maoz’s Noam ran together in a united coalition. But this time, Ben Gvir and his faction were given more prominent positions, in line with the surge in the popularity of its president Otzma Yehudit. In the previous election, Religious Zionism won seven seats, with five of them going to Smotrich’s camp along with one for Ben Gvir and one for Maoz. If the exit polls prove broadly accurate, the party will have about five or six Otzma Yehudit representatives in the Knesset and about seven from Smotrich’s Religious Zionist side, with Maoz again as the sole representative of the anti-LGBTQ faction Noam. But this time, far-right lawmakers are more likely to get top government posts, with Netanyahu assuring voters last week that religious Zionism will be an integral part of his coalition. Days before the election, Ben Gvir said he would demand the public security portfolio to implement police reforms that would allow a tougher hand against Arab Israeli and Palestinian protesters, along with suspects in the Negev region where crime rates are high. Netanyahu appeared to respond warmly to the demand, claiming that top ministerial posts – including the foreign, defense and finance ministries – would be reserved for the Likud party. Smotrich began running campaign ads last month touting his security credentials in what was seen as the start of a bid for defense secretary. Religious Zionist MK Itamar Ben Gvir campaigning at Sderot’s open market on election day, November 1, 2022. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel) Smotrich also campaigned for legal reforms that could lead to Netanyahu’s criminal trial being overturned. They included dropping charges of fraud and breach of trust – charges against the former prime minister in all cases against him. In his own address to Religious Zionist supporters after the polls closed, Smotrich said: “Religious Zionism has made history – a party supported by lovers of the Land of Israel, the Torah of Israel, is the third largest in Israel ». Religious Zionist party leader Betzalel Smotrich addresses his party’s supporters after the November 1 election in Israel (Kan TV screenshot) Added Smotrich: “We managed to get the evil down [outgoing] government and with God’s help we will create a Jewish, nationalist, Zionist government.” While a self-proclaimed student of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, Ben Gvir claims to have softened his views in recent years and has also removed from his living room a photo of Baruch Goldstein, the gunman who carried out the 1994 massacre in Hebron. Cave of the Patriarchs in which 29 Palestinians were killed. Ben Gvir campaigned on hard-line policies such as imposing the death penalty for terrorists, deporting “disloyal” Arab Israeli citizens and changing the rules of engagement for Israeli security forces to allow them to more easily shoot Palestinian suspects. The proposals appeared to resonate with large sections of the increasingly right-wing public, and many Religious Zionist voters characterized their votes as votes for “Ben Gvir” even though Smotrich is the party’s chairman. Ben Gvir and Smotrich have been careful to describe their collaboration as “technical”. They maintained separate campaign machinery and even held separate exit poll viewing parties on Tuesday night. Ben Gvir appealed to a more diverse electorate of right-wing, though not necessarily Orthodox, voters, while Smotrich’s base includes more mainstream and traditional parts of the national religious camp. The latter’s support is thought to have somewhat less to do with the legislator in particular and more to do with the party he represents. Otzma Yehudit, on the other hand, relies heavily on the popularity of Ben Gvir, who was once considered beyond the pale. Netanyahu declared himself unfit for a ministerial position in the previous elections. MKs Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich at a rally of their Religious Zionist party in the southern city of Sderot on October 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP) Yonatan Yosef, a right-wing activist who was among the hundreds celebrating at the Vert Hotel, attributed the seemingly strong performance of Religious Zionism to Ben Gvir’s actions on behalf of Jewish residents in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood over the past year. Ben Gvir opened a makeshift office in the neighborhood of the flashpoint where nationalist Jews seek to move in the place of the Palestinians. He refused many times…
