The Religious Zionism party held its primary election Sunday, with incumbent lawmakers largely filling the only realistic spots on the far-right party’s Knesset slate, beginning with Settlements Minister Orit Strock.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was reelected in a vote by the central committee last year and did not participate in Sunday’s ballot.

Strock was followed by MKs Simcha Rothman, Zvi Sukkot, Ohad Tal, and newcomer Omer Rahamim, who heads the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing West Bank settlements, supplanting incumbent lawmaker Michal Woldiger, who fell to seventh place.

Strock and Smotrich have overseen the government’s settlement expansion agenda, a flagship issue for the party, which draws much of its support from the religious Zionist community in West Bank settlements. During its tenure, the current government has approved 103 new West Bank settlements, an unprecedented number in the history of the settlement movement.

Also elected were newcomers Rabbi Shmuel Sasson, Petah Tikva Deputy Mayor Tzvika Weizengrad, Rosh Haayin Deputy Mayor Eitan Tam, and Natan Zaubman, who heads a program assisting French immigrants to Israel.

The list is not yet final, however, as Smotrich is entitled to reserve at least two places on the slate for his handpicked candidates — one in each group of five candidates — and is expected to use one of those slots for Tzvika Mor.

Mor, the father of former hostage Eitan Mor, joined the party in May and co-founded the Tikva Forum, a small group of hostages’ families who, unlike members of the larger Hostages and Missing Families Forum, consistently opposed partial hostage release agreements with Hamas that involved the freeing of Palestinian security prisoners and temporary ceasefires in........

© The Times of Israel