“Politics provides practical solutions to problems; it is the art of the possible. But every so often the smell of these solutions is particularly vile.” This was how a senior Likud party Knesset candidate described (on condition of anonymity) to Al-Monitor Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s involvement in the alliance between the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party of ultranationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane’s disciples and the parties of the religious right. It is worth noting that Netanyahu actively promoted and supported this alliance in recent weeks in order to preserve the votes of the radical right from being lost in the April elections.

Therein (in this description) lies the explanation of the March 6 vote by Likud representatives on the Central Election Committee against disqualifying candidates of the ultranationalist party over their anti-Arab invective. Attorney Aner Helman, representing Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, presented the panel, comprised of lawmakers from the outgoing Knesset, with examples of Otzma Yehudit’s statements. These included a particularly egregious one from August 2018 by Otzma Yehudit Chair Michael Ben Ari, No. 5 on the United Right-Wing Parties’ Knesset slate. “We have to change the equation regarding anyone who dares to speak against a Jew. [Such a person] is a dead man. He must not come out alive. No expelling him, no stripping him of his citizenship. He does not live! A firing squad takes him out as the Arabs understand [best],” Ben Ari said.

However, the citations did not sway the Knesset representatives on the panel, among them members of the Yisrael Beitenu party who despise Otzma Yehudit’s racist language. Eli Avidar, No. 4 on the Yisrael Beitenu Knesset slate, said at a March 9 event that he does “not want to breathe the same air that Otzma Yehudit members breathe in the same room.” He cited, among other things, their rejection of military service by Israel’s Bedouin citizens.

Otzma Yehudit member Itamar Ben Gvir, No. 8 on the United Right-Wing Parties list, tells Al-Monitor that although his party’s leadership studied under Kahane, a distinction must be made between its views and those of their late leader. “We have not and will not sponsor racist legislation of separation [between Jews and Arabs] on the beaches, as Rabbi Kahane preached,” he said, adding, “But we will demand full loyalty to the state of all citizens. Anyone who refuses should emigrate.”