The Otzma Yehudit and Noam parties will run separately in the September 17th election for the Knesset, the parties announced Thursday afternoon. Just yesterday , Otzma Yehudit and the newly-formed social conservative Noam party announced that they had signed a deal for a joint run for the Knesset. The list was to have been led by attorney and Otzma Yehudit activist Itamar Ben-Gvir, followed by two candidates from the Noam party in second and third place. Fourth on the joint ticket is long-time Hevron activist and former Kach party leader Baruch Marzel. But on Thursday, party officials said that the joint list had been dissolved, following an ongoing disagreement over the inclusion of secular candidate on the list. Noam, which was established to represent the haredi-national-religious (Hardal) sector, protested Otzma’s plans to include a secular candidate. After the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the issue, the parties agreed on a mutual separation. “While the Otzma Yehudit party wanted to include secular candidates, Noam insisted that this was against its principles,” a joint statement said. Earlier on Thursday it was reported that Otzma Yehudit is debating taking on former Likud MK Oren Hazan, who ran in the April election at the helm of the Tzomet party, receiving just 2,417 votes. Otzma officials say they plan on filing for an independent run for the 22nd Knesset. The deadline for filing candidate lists for the elections is 10:00 p.m. Thursday night.
