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The Jewish Home party announced it will merge with the far right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party after its central committee voted overwhelmingly to approve a deal.

Otzma Yehudit will receive the fifth and eight slots on the joint list of Jewish Home and National Union.

Established in 2012, Otzma Yehudit is led by former National Union MK Michael Ben Ari and far right activists Itamar Ben Gvir, Baruch Marzel and Benti Gopstein. They are followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was a Knesset member from 1984-88 before his Kach Party was made illegal. Kach was declared an illegal terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and many other Western countries. The organisation has a history of incitement to violence, racism and involvement in violent attacks on Palestinians. Kach activists openly supported Baruch Goldstein after he murdered 29 Palestinians in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994.

Otzma Yehudit’s policy platform includes a proposal that non-Jews should be encouraged to emigrate from Israel and that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who refuse to declare loyalty to a Jewish state, which they consider to include all of the West Bank, should be expelled.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been pressing for a merger between the parties, fearing that Otzma Yehudit would fail to reach the electoral threshold of 3.25 per cent, leading to wasted right-wing votes. He promised to give two ministerial posts to the Jewish Home party if its members agreed to merge with Otzma Yehudit.

Rafi Peretz, the Jewish Home chairman, spoke in support of the merger. But he said the arrangement was “a technical agreement for a limited period of time” adding “after the elections we will separate”.

Likud and Jewish Home released a joint statement that said that during the election campaign the parties will not attack one another “but rather will strengthen one another for the sake of the right-wing victory”.

Moshe Yaalon, who is on Benny Gantz’s joint list, said: “They want to bring Kahanists into the next government. I’m sure that Shamir, Begin and Jabotinsky are turning in their graves. Is this what we wanted? For Kahanists, whose banner is ‘death to Arabs,’ to lead the State of Israel? Why is Netanyahu doing that? Political survival.”

In an editorial today Haaretz said: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lust for power knows no limits.”