Israel

Israel’s Election Panel Rejects Bids to Bar Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism

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Courtroom-sketch editorial illustration of Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir, bespectacled in a dark suit, raising both arms in celebration as a crowd waves blue-and-white Israeli flags beside a palm tree in Jerusalem; archival June 2021 context, not a depiction of the September 2026 Central Elections Committee vote, rendered in warm ochre and slate-blue pastel strokes.

Israel's Central Elections Committee, chaired by Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, voted 19 to 10 with one abstention on September 24 to reject petitions to disqualify National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party from the October 27 Knesset election. It also voted 21 to 3 against barring Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's joint Religious Zionism and Zehut slate. The petitions, brought by the Democrats party and the Zulat Institute, cited Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, which allows lists to be barred for negating Israel as a Jewish and democratic state or for incitement to racism. The attorney general's representative called the evidence against Otzma Yehudit very troubling but found no legal basis to disqualify either party.

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