No signature,
no vote.
We give our vote only to a list that commits in writing, before the election, to three conditions. A list that does not sign does not get it.
What a vote buys today
A vote once decided what would be done. Since the 1990s that power has passed to the court, the legal advisers, the General Staff and Washington. On January 1, 2024, the High Court struck down an amendment to a Basic Law, the flagship measure of the coalition the public had just elected.
What a vote still gives is a seal of approval. After the election, the world, the court, the army and the nation are told: the public chose this. From then on, whatever is done has been “decided by Israel.”
And a vote that is guaranteed in advance is worth nothing to a party. When the religious-Zionist public is told that voting is an absolute obligation, its vote belongs to a list before the campaign opens, and no party pays for what it already owns. This pledge gives the vote back its value: it is given only in return for a signature.
What we voted for, and what we got
17 Knesset elections since 1977. In each row: what the voter asked for, and what came of the vote.
Thin lines: Knesset elections since 1977. Red dots: a promise broken.
-
On the eve of Camp David, Menachem Begin told a delegation of Yamit residents: “I will not be a Prime Minister who agrees to evacuating yishuvim.”
Source: Chaggai Segal, Yamit, Sof, p. 20
1978–1982In April 1982 Yamit was destroyed and Sinai handed to Egypt, by the Likud government and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.
Source: Wikipedia: Yamit
-
Many who meant to vote for Techiya, the list running to stop the withdrawal from Sinai, moved their vote to the Likud at the last minute for fear that Labor would win.
Source: Wikipedia: 1981 Knesset election
1981The votes were counted as a mandate for withdrawal. MK Roni Milo told the Knesset that the debate over Camp David had ended on June 30, 1981.
Source: Chaggai Segal, Yamit, Sof, p. 43
-
Shas was elected on a gadol’s instruction and joined the coalition as a religious party.
Source: Wikipedia: Shas
1992–1993Oslo was approved in the Knesset on September 23, 1993, 61 to 50, with Shas abstaining on a gadol’s instruction.
-
Binyamin Netanyahu was elected in 1996 to stop Oslo.
1996–1998In January 1997 he signed the Hebron agreement, and in October 1998 the Wye memorandum. His defense: he had no choice.
Source: Wikipedia: Hebron Protocol; Wikipedia: Wye River Memorandum
-
Ariel Sharon was elected in 2003 against Amram Mitzna’s plan to leave Gaza.
Source: Wikipedia: Ariel Sharon
2003–2005Sharon adopted the plan. In May 2004 Likud members voted it down in a party referendum, and in August 2005 Gush Katif was uprooted.
Source: Al Jazeera, May 3, 2004; Wikipedia: Disengagement from Gaza
-
On September 10, 2019, Netanyahu asked for our votes on a promise to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. On January 21, 2020, opening the Likud campaign, he promised sovereignty in the Valley “without delay,” Israeli law in “all other communities without exception,” and that no one would be uprooted. The coalition agreement of April 20, 2020 allowed it to be brought to a vote from July 1.
Source: Arutz Sheva, Jan. 21, 2020; Wikipedia: Annexation of the Jordan Valley; Times of Israel, April 2020
2019–2020On August 13, 2020, sovereignty was suspended in exchange for the agreement with the Emirates. The Emirati ambassador had written in Yedioth Ahronoth that June that annexation and normalization could not go together.
Source: Al Otaiba op-ed, June 12, 2020
-
Yamina voters chose a list whose leader, Naftali Bennett, had committed in writing not to enter a rotation with Lapid.
Source: Israel Hayom, May 7, 2021
2021–2022Bennett formed a government with Lapid and Ra’am. A year later Lapid was prime minister, under the rotation.
-
The public elected the most right-wing coalition in the state’s history.
2022–2023October 7, 2023 came under it.
Source: Wikipedia: October 7 attacks
-
The coalition was elected with a majority for judicial reform, and enacted an amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary.
2022–2024On January 1, 2024, the High Court struck the amendment down, 8 to 7.
Source: Times of Israel, Jan. 1, 2024
-
On October 22, 2025, a bill applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset, 25 to 24.
Source: Kan News, Oct. 23, 2025 (Hebrew)
2025The American president said Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if it annexed. The bill went nowhere.
Source: The Jewish Chronicle
-
The present government was elected as the government that would strengthen settlement.
2026Under it, the army took the armory keys from Yitzhar’s security coordinator, Levi Yitzchak Feilent, froze recruitment to the rapid-response team, and dismissed him for “exceeding authority.”
The three conditions
A list that commits in writing, before the election, to all three gets our votes. The first two change the rules, so that we no longer have to believe promises.
Extend Basic Law: Referendum to Judea and Samaria, in the Knesset’s first session.
The 2014 Basic Law requires a referendum or 80 Knesset members before any sovereign territory is given up, but it does not cover Judea and Samaria. In August 2020 it was proposed to extend it, and the Likud said it would support the bill. It was never enacted. Once it is, no narrow coalition can hand over land.
A binding referendum on district elections, with the power to recall a representative.
A list MK answers to whoever places him on the list. A district representative answers to the district that elected him, and the district can replace him. That is what gives every other promise weight.
Apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria.
The sovereignty promised in 2019 and suspended in 2020.
What gives the signature weight
Levi Eshkol said: “I promised, but I didn’t promise to keep it.” So the pledge does not rest on trust.
The vote is the enforcement
A list that breaks a written commitment loses the signers’ votes permanently, and so does any later list that includes the person who broke it.
Commitments you can check on a date
Not “supports sovereignty,” but “will vote for the bill in the first session.” Coalition agreements are published, and keeping the commitment is a matter of fact.
A commitment before a beit din
Every candidate, religious or secular, commits before a beit din that the signers will choose before the next election. A candidate who refuses does not qualify for the signers’ votes.
Sign the pledge
The text of the pledge
I, the undersigned, pledge:
- To give my vote in Knesset elections only to a list that has committed in writing, before the election: to vote in the Knesset’s first session to extend Basic Law: Referendum to Judea and Samaria; to advance a binding referendum on district elections, with the power to recall a representative; and to apply Israeli law in Judea and Samaria.
- If there is no such list, I will not vote, and I will say openly why.
- A list that breaks its written commitment will never get my vote again, and neither will any list that includes the person who broke it.
- To treat as binding only a commitment made before the beit din the signers choose, on which no dayan or rabbi paid by the state, a local authority or a religious council sits, and no holder of party office or member of a party’s rabbinic council.
- This pledge takes effect when 40,000 people have signed it, one Knesset seat’s worth of votes (4,764,742 valid votes in 2022, divided by 120, is about 39,700, rounded up). Until then, my signature is a public statement of intent.
Signers by town
Recently signed
Data-use declaration
- What is collected
- Name, town, email and phone. An ID number only if you choose to give it.
- Why
- To show that each signature belongs to a real person, once, and to tell you about the choice of the beit din and the lists’ commitments. For nothing else.
- How it is kept
- Your name, email, phone and ID number are encrypted the moment you send them, with a key held only by the project’s manager. The server itself cannot read them. The information is never sold or shared.
- What is shown
- The number of signers, and the number in each town where at least five have signed. Your name and town only if you checked the box.
- Deletion
- You can ask for deletion at any time at bitnai@jewishhome.news. ID numbers will be deleted no later than December 31, 2030.
- Responsible for the data
- Mordechai Sones.