Bennett, Shaked said to plan to reunite with Jewish Home after elections
Two parties will reportedly run separately in April ballot before uniting for coalition talks with expected winner Netanyahu, in move to help grow the far-right’s Knesset bloc

HaYamin Hehadash, the new political party announced by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, is reportedly planning to join forces with their old Jewish Home faction after the April elections in a bid to strengthen the far-right bloc in the Knesset.
According to a report Sunday by the public broadcaster Kan, the two parties will run separately on the April 9 ballot, but unite afterward as a single bloc for the coalition talks with the expected winner of the race, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party.
Education Minister Bennett, the outgoing leader of Jewish Home, and Justice Minister Shaked announced the formation of their new party HaYamin HeHadash, whose name means “The New Right,” in a surprise press conference on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv.
The new party would be based on “full partnership” between Orthodox and secular Israelis, the two said, explaining that while Jewish Home had become a “significant force” in government over the past six years, their influence had waned as Prime Minister Netanyahu came to feel their base of Orthodox Zionists were “in his pocket.”
The Orthodox Bennett and secular Shaked would serve as the co-leaders of the new party, they announced.
MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli announced she would join the new party as well, a key acquisition as it brings the splitters to more than one-third of the original faction — Jewish Home has eight seats in the Knesset — and thus guarantees the new party public campaign funding in the April 9 race.

Jewish Home responded Sunday by unexpectedly welcoming the move, saying in a statement from party director general Nir Orbach that the party “thanks Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked for five years of accomplishments for the people of Israel. We believe that there are still great accomplishments awaiting them as leaders of the right-wing camp.”
The Jewish Home said it would “prepare for our future” without Bennett and Shaked, and would present a Knesset list of “worthy and talented public figures who will continue to work for the people of Israel in the 21st Knesset.”
The Kan report suggested the respect shown by those splitting from Jewish Home and those remaining in it may be part of the overall strategy behind the division.
Bennett and Shaked believe, according to the report, that a new party has a better chance of drawing right-wing secular voters that wouldn’t back the avowedly religious Jewish Home.

The two factions plan to unite back into a single faction once in the Knesset, the report said.
Israeli law grants elected lawmakers almost complete freedom to rearrange their political alliances as they see fit as they split and reunite into new political coalitions.
The new party’s formation has already lent renewed urgency to talks between the two parties that form the Jewish Home list — the National Religious Party and the National Union — to finalize their joint list for the elections.
Jewish Home’s number-three after Bennett and Shaked, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan, announced he would run for the party leadership, telling Israel Radio on Sunday morning, “there is only one right-wing Zionist-religious party, and that’s Jewish Home. As the one elected to the third-place slot in the party and who has served in its leadership, I plan on taking responsibility for the party and leading it for the welfare of our community.”
Bennett and Shaked explained their move on Saturday evening by accusing the Likud-led right of failing to live up to its right-wing ideals.

Bennett specifically attacked Netanyahu for stating only weeks ago that due to Israel’s sensitive security situation it would be irresponsible to go to early elections, and sending confidants to the religious leaders of religious Zionism in a successful bid to force Bennett and Shaked to nix their plan to resign from the government over Netanyahu’s refusal to appoint Bennett defense minister.
Netanyahu called early elections last week.
“We were forced to fold and remain in the government despite what we believe,” Bennett said. “Four weeks later when the prime minister decided elections were good for him, he did it.” There was no longer any talk of “an emergency security situation,” charged Bennett, because the time was right for the cynical Netanyahu.
The two said they seek to build a party which would achieve what Jewish Home couldn’t — “true partnership between secular and religious [Israelis].”
HaYamin HeHadash, Shaked said, would be a “full and equal partnership” between the secular and the Orthodox.
“We’ll regain Knesset seats that have slipped from the Likud to the left — to parties that claim to be right wing but are in fact left,” she said. “The party will strengthen the right.”

“I want to be very very clear,” Bennett said. “The New Right party is right-wing, no buts and no sort-ofs. In favor of the Land of Israel without compromise, against a Palestinian state, period.”
Said Bennett: “If there had been a party like this 13 years ago, the disengagement [from the Gaza Strip] would not have happened.”
Jewish Home was founded in 2008 as a continuation of an alliance between the National Religious Party and the National Union. Bennett became its leader in 2012 and was joined at the helm by his number-two Shaked.
Bennett was Netanyahu’s chief of staff between 2006-2008 when he was head of the opposition. Shaked was Netanyahu’s office manager at the time. The two have been political allies since then.
Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report.