With four days remaining until new elections for Knesset will be declared for a third time in a year, the right-wing parties excluding Likud may unite and run under one combined ticket for the greater good.

New election polls show that both Bayit Yehudi and the New Right parties may not reach the minimum election threshold to enter Knesset. This has Transportation Minister Betzalel Smotrich worried, leading to his call to unite.

Just last week, Defense Minister Naftali Bennet announced that if there is a new election declared, his party will not team with Bayit Yehudi, but it will run independently. That last time the party ran on its own, it failed to enter Knesset. The new poll reveals the same results.

Excluding Likud, there are four right-wing parties in Knesset; Bayit Yehudi headed by Rabbi Rafi Peretz, Ichud Leumi headed by Betzalel Smotrich, New Right headed by Ayelet Shaked and Otzma Yehudi headed by attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Smotrich fears that if they run independently again, it will leave right-wing voters with a dilemma, one which ultimately results in disaster for the right-wing. In fact, a poll released on motzei Shabbos shows a gain for Likud but a drop for the overall right-wing bloc due to the poor performance of the parties listed above.

According to Yisrael Hayom newspaper correspondent Yehuda Schlesinger on Sunday, Smotrich is calling for the four parties to combine immediately and announce they will run under one ticket and hold primaries to determine the lineup of the united party.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)