Netanyahu Merges Extremist Parties, Seeking Support in Election

With the various far-right portions of the previous coalition government now split, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking for newer, farther right parties to court. He has made a deal on the merger of two extremist parties to try to get them above the electoral threshhold, and a deal to see those MPs join a Netanyahu-led coalition.

The merger combines what is left of the Jewish Home party, which is tiny since Naftali Bennett and other leaders left to form the New Right, and the Jewish Power party, a collection of racists loyal to the banned movement of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

This has sparked some criticism from Netanyahu’s rivals, with him trying to cobble together potential allies from racists and homophobes, in an effort to keep his far-right coalition standing, no matter how much farther right it has to go.

While these parties are both very divisive and not palatable to the mainstream, they are both extremely pro-settler, and in Israel’s notoriously-tight elections, courting the comparatively small number of settler voters is always seen as a priority for coalition-builders.