His far-right party now in the opposition, rebel MK Almog Cohen is in political limbo
Freshman lawmaker declines to resign with rest of his Otzma Yehudit faction, but won’t say if he considers himself part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
With his far-right party’s exit from the government going into effect on Tuesday morning, Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen entered a state of political limbo, occupying a liminal space somewhere between the coalition and opposition.
Cohen was the only member of Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit not to hand in a resignation letter on Sunday morning, when the rest of his party’s ministers and lawmakers announced that they were pulling out of the coalition to protest the cabinet’s approval of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The tensions between Cohen and the rest of Otzma Yehudit stem from his decision to buck party discipline several times in recent weeks and vote with the coalition, a move that led the party to slap him with several sanctions, including exclusion from faction meetings, removal from the party’s internal WhatsApp groups, and a push to have him removed from the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee.
Speaking with The Times of Israel in the Knesset on Monday evening, the lawmaker dismissed chairman Ben Gvir’s decision as a mistake even as he declined to announce his own resignation from a party that has disavowed him in all but name.
Asked if he still considered himself a part of the coalition, Cohen deflected the question, saying only that he rejected the “old politics” of looking out for “yourself and your benefits… and your [own] people.”
“I’m only in the service of the people of Israel,” Cohen declared. “This is my future. I don’t mess with that thing, the old politics. Two weeks ago, I could ask for whatever I want and get whatever I want because I was the golden [boy]. But I think that the new politics is to take care of the Israeli people. This is what I’m doing always.”
Insisting that he had no plans to leave Otzma Yehudit, Cohen said he was unsure if he would be formally expelled, arguing that if that happened, his colleagues would be “harming themselves electorally.”
“But I must tell you, I don’t even think about it because I’m always working,” he claimed. “We’re still a democracy. If the people vote for me, I’ll be in their service. If not, it’s okay.”
Cohen, a freshman lawmaker, has developed a reputation as a firebrand, calling for opposition leaders to “be put in handcuffs,” screaming at the families of hostages held in Gaza that they were “representing Hamas,” and likening Arab party MKs to sheep, for which he earned a reprimand from the Knesset Ethics Committee.
He was also temporarily suspended from Twitter in January 2023 after tweeting his support for a deadly IDF raid in the West Bank and urging soldiers to “keep killing them.” An investigation by the State Attorney’s Office into allegations that he had used violence against a civilian during his service in the Israel Police over a decade ago was closed last April.
Otzma Yehudit has been voting against the coalition since mid-December, even before the ceasefire was reached, with Ben Gvir threatening not to submit to coalition discipline until budget cuts to his ministry were rescinded and action taken to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Responding to criticism from his party earlier this month, Cohen said that he had been “forced to be the responsible adult in the face of childish acts that undermine the stability of the coalition and the nation.”
“My faction’s boycott and such spin will not bring me to be part of the current bickering that is harming the war effort,” he tweeted at the time, calling for “immediate negotiations” to discuss the issue of the police budget.
This is not the first time that the lawmaker has gone against his party on the issue of the budget. In June 2023, Cohen was formally ousted from the prestigious Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after reportedly infuriating Ben Gvir by publicly criticizing the latter’s ultimatum to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding that year’s state budget.
Cohen on Monday also ruled out establishing his own independent faction, stating that in his view, the Knesset’s right-wing parties ought to come “closer together, not try to go on dangerous trips” and form new parties.
Asked if he had received any offers to join Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party or any other coalition faction, Cohen replied that he was “talking with everyone.”
“I’m a very cooperative man. I’m trying to talk with everyone. I’m not taking care of my [political] future because really, I’m nothing. I’m just serving the Israeli nation. It’s the most important thing, in my opinion.”
