Jerusalem: Two senior Israeli Cabinet ministers have announced that they are forming a new party to run in the elections in April, in the hope that they can present a hard-line alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said they were leaving the Jewish Home party and would instead lead a new list of candidates.
The Jewish Home is a hard-line nationalist party that is especially popular with religious voters and West Bank settlers. Bennett and Shaked hope that their new movement, called “The New Right,” will have a broader appeal to both religious and secular voters.
Bennett has been the leader of the Jewish Home since 2012, and Shaked is one of the country’s most popular politicians.
Jewish Home has served as a junior partner to the Likud Party in the past two Israeli coalition governments. But Bennett and Shaked, who are both former aides to Netanyahu, have often been at odds with their former boss.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (AP).