‘Kahanist’ figure poised to enter Israeli parliament on Ben Gvir’s party list
An Israeli far-right “Kahanist” figure with links to a soldier convicted of killing an unarmed wounded Palestinian man is on track to enter the Israeli parliament, or the Knesset.
Tzachi Eliyahu secured eighth place on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party list ahead of Israel’s upcoming elections, due to take place on 27 October, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
Eliyahu has a tattoo of the Kach movement on his arm. It was founded by radical Jewish supremacist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was assassinated in New York in 1990.
Kach was banned in Israel and designated a terrorist organisation over its racist policies towards Palestinians, including calls to expel them from their homeland.
The movement was outlawed in 1994 after Baruch Goldstein, a Kach member, massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
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In 2023, Ben Gvir blocked Eliyahu from entering the Knesset following the resignation of Avi Maoz, chairman of the far-right Noam party.
Ben Gvir, who has himself been convicted of supporting Kach, reportedly believed Eliyahu’s Kach tattoo would damage the party’s image, according to Haaretz.
“He’s from the previous generation of Otzma Yehudit,” a political source told the Israeli news site Srugim at the time.
“He’s that kind of Kahanist,” the source said.
Eliyahu has now secured eighth place on Otzma Yehudit’s list. Recent polls project the party will win eight to 10 Knesset seats.
On Monday, after the party submitted its candidates list to the Central Elections Committee, Ben Gvir praised its composition, saying he was “proud that we have the most diverse list in Israel”.
“Above all,” Ben Gvir said, Otzma Yehudit members “have a lot of love for the people of Israel in our hearts”.
The minister has also made advancing the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank one of his party’s priorities. The term is widely used by Israeli officials as a euphemism for the forced displacement or expulsion of Palestinians.
Links to a convicted soldier
According to Haaretz, Eliyahu previously posed for a photograph with Elor Azaria, a former Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting and killing an unarmed Palestinian man who was lying wounded on the ground in Hebron in 2016.
In a social media post, Eliyahu described Azaria as “the child of us all”, saying the soldier understood that “you eliminate a terrorist at the scene”.
Eliyahu has also been involved in several incidents of violence involving anti-government protesters in recent years, Haaretz reported.
During the mass anti-government demonstrations in 2023 against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, Eliyahu was seen attacking protesters on several occasions.
He also called for Palestinian Haaretz journalist Hanin Majadli to be confronted at her home after she expressed support for an Israeli teacher who was dismissed for criticising the Israeli military.
“Haaretz won’t fire her, but let’s make sure the police pay her a visit at home,” he said.
In June, Eliyahu and other far-right activists raised Israeli flags at the entrance to Kafr Kanna, a Palestinian-majority town in northern Israel.
“Our top mission as a government and as a people is to Judaise the Galilee and ensure the Jewish majority in the Land of Israel,” he wrote on Facebook.
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