Limor Son Har-Melech

Limor Son Har-Melech (לימור סון הר-מלך; born 30 July 1979) is a far-right Israeli settler and politician. She has served as a member of the Knesset for the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party following the 2022 Israeli legislative election.

A former resident of the illegal West Bank settlement of Homesh prior to the 2005 disengagement, Har-Melech co-founded an organization seeking to rebuild the illegal outpost. In 2003, Har-Melech was severely wounded, and her husband killed, in an attack by Palestinian terrorists during the Second Intifada. In 2023, Har-Melech sparked controversy after describing Amiram Ben-Uliel, a convicted terrorist who killed three Palestinian civilians and burned their 18 month-old son, as a "holy righteous man".

Early life and personal biography
Har-Melech was born in Jerusalem in 1979. In 2001, she married her first husband Shuli Har-Melech and moved with him to Homesh, an illegal Israeli outpost in the occupied West Bank, where he was a medic and an ambulance driver, and they had a son together.

In August 2003, during the Second Intifada, while Har-Melech was seven months pregnant with her second child, her husband and she were driving in a car near Ramallah on the West Bank when five gunmen fired upon their vehicle with automatic weapons and the vehicle rolled over. Shuli died instantly, whilst Limor was in critical condition and her daughter was born prematurely by cesarean section several hours later. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Palestinian militant organization described as the military wing of the Palestinian political party Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.

In 2005, Har-Melech and her family, along with the rest of the residents of Homesh, were evicted from their homes due to the Israeli disengagement from Gaza and some West Bank towns, with the illegal settlement being demolished. In 2023, a video of Har-Melech in 2005 encouraging her then 2-year-old son as he vowed to "kill the Arabs" was published. Har-Melech married her current husband Yehuda, and had a further eight children with him. They moved out of temporary accommodation into a house in the Shavei Shomron settlement after her seventh child.

She was present in the Palestinian town of Huwara after an outbreak of violence by Israelis settlers in February 2023. She called on the government "not to issue condemnations and appeals for calm".

Political career
Har-Melech co-founded the grassroots organization Homesh First, which seeks to re-build the illegal outpost she had lived in until 2005. In the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Har-Melech was chosen for the thirteenth spot on the Religious Zionist Party-Otzma Yehudit list. As the list won fourteen mandates, Har-Melech was successfully elected to the Knesset.

In 2023, Har-Melech introduced legislation to ban the waving of Palestinian flags on Israeli college campuses.

Political views
Har-Melech has echoed accusations that the leadership of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) privileges the safety of Palestinians in the West Bank over settlers. In 2023, she claimed that Yoav Gallant, currently serving as Minister of Defense, "knowingly endangers" settlers and should be replaced in office, and endorsed similar comments by fellow MK Avihai Boaron.

On criminal justice issues, Har-Melech has argued that sentences for Arabs who kill Jews should be harsher than sentences for Jews who kill Arabs. In an interview with Ynet radio, Har-Melech said that a Jew who kills an Arab should receive life imprisonment, while any Arab "who kills a Jew needs to die."

2023 Ben Uliel controversy
In 2023, Har-Melech ignited controversy after defending Amiram Ben Uliel, a terrorist convicted in 2020 of murdering three members of a Palestinian family and burning their 18-month old child, as a "holy righteous man". At a fund-raiser for the convicted terrorist's legal defense, Har-Melech claimed Ben Uliel was innocent. Her comments sparked an "indirect reproach" by the United States Department of State.

Personal life
Har-Melech and her husband Yehuda live in the West Bank settlement of Shavei Shomron. She has ten children.