Knesset member Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right gadfly who heads the Jewish Power party, is one of the rising stars of Israel’s 2022 election. In just one year, Ben Gvir has become the most popular politician on the far right because of his vociferous opposition to the current coalition’s inclusion of the Islamist Ra’am party.

In Ben Gvir's frequent clashes with the Knesset’s Arab members, he always blames the fights on them, even accusing Ayman Odeh of attacking him when the Joint List chair blocked his way to the hospital room of a Palestinian hunger striker. He claims that they see him as the symbol of a far-right ideology and know that if he is elected, “the party would be over for them.”

Ben Gvir has taken advantage of tensions Israel between Israel’s Arab and Jewish populations to score points. He is already very popular among soldiers and ultra-Orthodox and right-wing youth, but he has also managed to win over voters from the Likud and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

As a result, he is soaring in the most recent polls. If he headed a united Religious Zionist party instead of its current leader Bezalel Smotrich, it would win as many as 13 seats, up from the seven it now holds. If Smotrich continues to lead the party, it's predicted to grow at a moderate rate and win just 10 seats.