As Bennett and Shaked leave Jewish Home, ex-MK Strock says she’s back
Hebron resident, who served in Knesset in 2013-15, says she wants to represent settler interests in parliament
Former lawmaker Orit Strock has announced her reentry into politics, telling party activists she will seek a hardline Tekumah faction seat on the right-wing Jewish Home party list for the April national vote.
Strock, who served in parliament from 2013 to 2015, told activists on Sunday she was gunning for a political comeback after a three-year break.
“You are familiar with my work as a Knesset member in the previous Knesset,” she said in a message to supporters, according to the Srugim website. “In a short, tumultuous candidacy I tried — and I think that I succeeded, in no small measure — to fight for our values, to loyally represent our wonderful community, and to promote its projects,” she said, referring to the settlement movement.
Strock is a longtime resident of the West Bank city of Hebron, where she runs the Jewish community’s legal and diplomatic division and has made her home for over 30 years. A mother of 11 and grandmother, Strock also is the founder and chairwoman of Human Rights in Yesha, an organization that advocates for settlers’ rights. In that capacity, Strock has fought against alleged abuse of settlers by soldiers and policemen, and advocated for the rights of those who protested Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
Strock, 58, was also previously part of the Land of Israel lobby in the Knesset that fought for settlement expansion and legalizing settlement outposts.
Her announcement came after Jewish Home party leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked on Saturday revealed they were leaving their party to form another, the New Right.
The move sent shock waves through Jewish Home, which had seen its political fortunes rise with Bennett at the helm despite differences with some leaders of the alliance’s various factions over the religious character of the party.
Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, head of the Tekumah faction that makes up part of Jewish Home, said in a statement early Sunday that the party would continue vying for votes on the right-wing as an allied effort.
He made the statement after a late-night meeting with Rabbi Haim Druckman, the spiritual leader of the National Religious Party.
Jewish Home was founded in 2008 as a continuation of an alliance between the National Religious Party and the National Union, which itself is an amalgamation of Tekumah and other factions. Bennett became its leader in 2012 and was joined at the helm by Shaked.
“We’ve decided to continue to strengthen religious Zionism through a joint effort,” Ariel said in a statement. “We’ve decided to continue contacts to bolster the union and win in the next elections as a unified right-wing faction with strong religious Zionist leadership.
There have long been reports of clashes within Jewish Home between Bennett and Shaked on one side and members of the Tekumah party which is led by Ariel and MK Bezalel Smotrich.
Tekumah had reportedly issued a list of new demands of Jewish Home’s leaders regarding its prominence in the party in the run-up to the new elections. These may have contributed to Bennett and Shaked’s decision to split.
Explaining the decision to leave, the ministers said that while Jewish Home had become a “significant force” in government over the past six years, its power had waned, with Bennett saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt religious Zionists were “in his pocket.”
Polls released on Sunday showed the Jewish Home party sinking — and possibly not clearing the electoral threshold — as most of their votes were siphoned off by the New Right.
JTA contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.