Religious Zionism Chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday night announced the launch of a registration drive for the party, to be followed by primaries. Smotrich has promised several times in the past that he would hold a referendum of party members and has repeatedly pushed it off. Now the move is underway, although no date has been set for the primaries yet.
MK Smotrich said in a statement: “I call on the men and women of the right to get up from the armchair of despair and indifference and take responsibility. Together we will return Israel to the right.”
We looked up the chairman’s unusual reference and found something similar that was written by the Fresh Air Fiend on a travel website called We Chase Summer: “Travel, its very motion, ought to suggest hope. Despair is the armchair; it is indifference and glazed, incurious eyes. I think travelers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere.”
The registration and primaries may offer Religious Zionism an opportunity to shed its two Knesset partners, Noam, and Otzma Yehudit, both being to the right of the party. The three factions ran to the Knesset together in a technical bloc but decided to stick it out in order to benefit from the electoral power of their six seats. Noam has already held a registration drive and Otzma Yehudit is planning one soon.
Smotrich shared his dream of winning 10 seats in the next elections (he now has six with two partners), which he plans to tear off his rivals in Yamina but also bring in Likud and United Torah Judaism voters.