Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is among the vocal opponents to the new The “New Right” party that was announced on motzei Shabbos, explaining he fears it will harm the right-wing camp in the election.
Mr. Netanyahu is quoted telling senior party officials that he feels the new party headed by Naftali Bennet and Ayelet Shaked does not spell good news for the right-wing camp, in fact he calls it a “mortal blow to the nationalist camp which may lead to the establishment of a left-wing government”, Yisrael Hayom reports. Hence, Mr. Netanyahu has already placed the blame for a right-wing failure in the upcoming election on Bennet, his political nemesis.
Netanyahu, who is on a state visit to Brazil on the occasion of the inauguration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, has so far refrained from addressing the issue in public. Now, he has spoken to senior Likud officials and told them that Bennet and Shaked are crushing right-wing parties that will not pass the threshold.
According to recent polls, Shas, Kulanu, Bayit Yehudi and Yisrael Beitenu are fluctuating around the minimum threshold of four seats, and if only one of them does not enter the Knesset, the right-wing bloc may not succeed in preventing a left-wing government coalition.
On Sunday, Likud Minister of Tourism Yariv Levin launched a fierce attack against Ministers Bennet and Shaked, claiming that their intention was to topple the prime minister. The post written by Minister Levin was distributed to the political reporters by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesman.
“From their wild attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is clear that Bennet and Shaked’s intention is to bring down the prime minister and the Likud government,” Levin wrote.
“Just as they used Bayit Yehudi and abandoned it, they will take the mandates they will receive in the elections and transfer them from right to left to the lap of Yair Lapid, with whom they were and will be in a ‘covenant of brothers.’ It is not for nothing that Lapid celebrated and rushed to congratulate them.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
He’s pretending to be the UK or USA with “first post the post”. As long as parties splitting doesn’t result in a faction missing the minimum percentage (a problem for small groups such as the Hareidim and the Arabs), there is no damage done to a movement by having multiple parties. The exception would be if the Religious Zionist movement is now so weak that it can’t get 2.5 % without have an only somewhat religious ultra-nationalist orientation.