From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Former Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen running in Likud primary; Netanyahu welcomes him
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
Former Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen announces he will be running in the Likud primary.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes the move, praising the ultranationalist as a “warrior” in a joint video address announcing his candidacy.
“Almog, I am glad today to officially welcome you into the ranks of Likud,” Netanyahu says, noting that he waived tenure requirements to allow the newly minted Likud member to run in the August 17 party primary.
“This is a warrior, a man of the Negev who chewed my ear off to bring an airport to the Negev. Well done. And he was with us on the decisive vote to pass the budget. I’m not forgetting that. I thank you,” Netanyahu adds, referring both to Cohen’s push to approve a new airport in the south and his willingness to buck party discipline to help pass the 2025 budget.
Thanking Netanyahu, Cohen calls for the “victory of the camp under your leadership.”
אני מודה על הזכות להמשיך ולשרת אתכם, אזרחי ישראל, ולהתמודד בפריימריז בליכוד. אני בטוח כי כפי שהייתי לצידכם בטוב וברע- כך אתם תהיו לצידי.
אני מודה לראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו, על האמון והדרך המשותפת.בשם ה׳ נעשה ונצליח???????????????? pic.twitter.com/huJsaLBnHB
— אלמוג כהן Almog cohen (@almog_cohen08) August 12, 2026
The former police officer and restaurateur was elected to the Knesset on Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit slate in 2022. He quickly 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 being reprimanded by the Knesset Ethics Committee for likening Arab party MKs to sheep.
He was also the subject of a criminal probe, since closed, into allegations that he used violence against a civilian during his service in the Israel Police over a decade ago.
Beyond clashing with ideological opponents in the Knesset, Cohen also quarreled with his colleagues, repeatedly voting with the coalition despite Otzma Yehudit’s decision to oppose the 2025 state budget — an approach that led the party to slap him with several sanctions, including exclusion from faction meetings and removal from the party’s internal WhatsApp groups.
And as Netanyahu alluded to today, his abstention during a committee vote on an important budget-related bill in January 2025 paved the way for the bill to go to the plenum for its second and third readings.
Cohen was also the sole Otzma Yehudit lawmaker not to temporarily resign from the coalition over the cabinet’s approval of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip that month, prompting Ben Gvir to say that “his place is in Likud and I wish him great success.”
Cohen was later appointed by Netanyahu to a deputy ministerial position and resigned as a lawmaker under the law, which allows cabinet members and deputy ministers to resign their Knesset seats while they hold their ministerial posts.
In a statement, Cohen says that he is “grateful for the privilege of continuing to serve you, the citizens of Israel, and to run in the Likud primaries. I am certain that just as I have been by your side through good and bad, you will be by my side. I thank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his trust.”
The Times of Israel Community.