Otzma Yehudit

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir during the vote to pass the death penalty law in the Knesset, in Jerusalem, March 30, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

‘They already shoot us for no reason. Now they have a death penalty’

Under Israel's new law, only Palestinians will face capital punishment. Up next is a tribunal to execute those convicted of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks.

By Jared Hillel March 31, 2026

Yochai Damri, head of the Mount Hebron Regional Council, and Home Front Maj. Gen. Uri Gordin, visit the remains of the ancient Jewish village of Susiya, where a Palestinian village of the same name now exists, in the southern occupied West Bank, December 15, 2021. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Annexation in the name of archeology

Armed with huge budgets, far-right Israeli ministers are pushing ahead with plans to displace Palestinians under the guise of safeguarding heritage sites.

By Alon Arad and Talya Ezrahi August 1, 2023

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar Ben Gvir during a Knesset session to vote on forming the government, December 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Land grabs. Homophobia. Radicalized police: What to expect from Israel’s far-right government

The new coalition is set to deepen colonization on both sides of the Green Line, while expanding its tools to oppress Palestinians, leftists, and LGBTQ people.

By Natasha Soffer-Roth December 29, 2022

Latest

Head of the Otzma Yehudit party MK Itamar Ben Gvir arrives to the opening session of the 25th Knesset in Jerusalem, November 15, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Ben Gvir’s dream ministry brings Kahane’s vision one step closer

With the portfolio he’s craved, the far-right lawmaker can accelerate Israel’s colonial violence against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line.

By Natasha Soffer-Roth November 30, 2022

Workers hang a large election campaign poster of Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir and take down a poster of Arab MK Ahmad Tibi, in Jerusalem on September 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

‘We survived Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu. We’ll survive Ben Gvir too’

Despite Arab parties focusing their election campaigns on the threat of the far right, it is the Jewish center left who seem to be more afraid.

By Baker Zoubi November 28, 2022

MK Itamar Ben Gvir seen during a plenum session in the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 20, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Kahanism’s triumphant makeover

Itamar Ben Gvir, the star of Israel’s most far-right party, is thriving off of a national political discourse that allows him to accomplish what his predecessors could not: bringing Kahanism to the mainstream.

By Noam Sheizaf October 3, 2022

Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the Otzma Yehudit party, holds a press conference in Jerusalem, March 1, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Netanyahu is embracing fascists — and the world is tolerating them

Itamar Ben-Gvir is not an outlier in Israeli politics; he is part of a far-right alliance that the international community has been normalizing for years.

By Sami Abu Shehadeh March 4, 2021

A sticker has been removed but the Arabic remains hidden on a street sign along the central King George Street in Jerusalem. (Ben Reiff)

The Israeli right is erasing Arabic from Jerusalem, one street sign at a time

A campaign by right-wing activists to strike off Arabic from Jerusalem street signs goes hand in hand with government attempts to uproot the city's Palestinian identity.

By Ben Reiff September 24, 2020

Right wing activists attend a ceremony honoring the late Rabbi Meir Kahane in Jerusalem on November 17, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Otzma Yehudit is out. Does that mean Israelis reject Kahanism?

While the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party failed to pass the electoral threshold, the latest national elections in Israel saw the normalization of Kahane’s particular brand of overt racism. Twenty-one years ago, Rabbi Meir Kahane stared into the camera during an election ad for his Kach party and told viewers, “[the Arabs of Israel] want to kill…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth September 19, 2019

Israeli security forces guard as Jews tour the Palestinian side of the old city market in the West Bank city of Hebron, June 15, 2019. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

Elections reveal a seismic split within Israel’s right

Once the ascendant elite, the settler movement’s political power is on the decline. By Meron Rapoport While political analysts wonder if we have come to the end of the Netanyahu era, little attention is being paid to another major outcome of this election — that is, the decline of the national religious movement’s political power.…

By +972 Magazine September 19, 2019

Rabbi Meir Kahane. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Are voters about to send Kahanists back to the Knesset?

If the polls are accurate, more than 140,000 voters will vote the Kahanists back into the Knesset in next week’s election. Yet the desire for a pure Jewish state long ago moved from the margins of Israeli society to the mainstream. By Ron Cahlili One week before Israel’s national election, nearly every major poll shows the Kahanist party Otzma…

By +972 Magazine September 11, 2019

Kahanist Michael Ben-Ari gives a speech to right-wing demonstrators who are protesting an event commemorating the Palestinian Nakba at Tel Aviv University, May 14, 2012.

How to stop Kahanists from taking over

Twenty-five years after a follower of Meir Kahane massacred Palestinian worshipers in Hebron, Netanyahu is basing his future coalition on a Kahanist party. Now Israelis will have to decide between apartheid and a future of hope and equality. By Raluca Ganea Reality is often too complex to draw clear lines between cause and effect. But occasionally, a single act…

By +972 Magazine February 26, 2019

Members of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party Bentzi Gopstein (left) Michael Ben Ari (center) and Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir (right) seen in Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem, March 12, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israel’s fascist sideshow takes center stage

For the first time in over 30 years, a proper Kahanist party could be entering the Knesset. But is the rise of a party that advocates for Jewish supremacy, theocracy, and ‘total war’ as unprecedented as the outcry has suggested? The last week has been an eventful one in the annals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dalliances with the…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth February 24, 2019