New far-right Power to Israel party launched

MKs Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari of the National Union party announced on Tuesday that they will form their own separate party together with right-wing activist Baruch Marzel ahead of the upcoming general elections.

The new Power to Israel party list will be headed by Eldad, with Ben-Ari taking second place and Marzel third. The new party will campaign with the slogan “There are no rights without duties,” they said at a press conference.

Ben-Ari and Marzel collaborated in the past to form the Jewish National Front party, which failed to win any seats in the 2006 elections. Ben-Ari left to join the National Union party and won a seat in the 18th Knesset in 2009, after which he took on Marzel as his parliamentary aide.

The National Union party recently signed an agreement to run together with the Jewish Home party on a joint list for the forthcoming January elections, a move that both Eldad and Ben-Ami opposed, fearing it would compromise their extremist ideological positions.

Both Ben-Ari and Marzel were followers of assassinated racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was shot in New York by an Arab gunman in 1990.