Four days before the deadline for the submission of party lists, Ayelet Shaked announced that she has dissolved her partnership with Yoaz Hendel and Tzvi Hauser.

The move came after Shaked’s attempts to form an alliance with the Bayit Yehudi party. The party’s new chairman, Yossi Brodney, made it clear that his party won’t ally with Shaked unless she ends her partnership with Hendel and Hauser, who have insisted that they are unwilling to be a part of a narrow right-wing government under Binyamin Netanyahu.

A statement from Shaked that “after many conversations with Derech Eretz party members, Minister Shaked decided to part ways with Yoaz Hendel and Tzvi Hauser, who made it clear that if a unity government isn’t formed, they would prefer to drag the country into further elections than form a right-wing government. An unthinkable irresponsible option.”

“To Minister Shaked’s great dismay, despite repeated statements by the two, the Derech Eretz faction is still caught in the ‘Just Not Bibi’ camp and the discourse of hatred and boycotts that Minister Shaked is trying to end. This discourse drags the country into elections over and over, causes instability and crushes Israel.”

“Minister Shaked is not ready to drag the State of Israel into another election and in the event that she fails to form a unity government, she will strive to establish a balanced right-wing government in which the Zionist Spirit party will play a responsible role.”

The statement clarified that Shaked will continue her run for the Knesset, and
that “in the coming days, Minister Shaked will present her list to the Knesset – a diverse list of candidates with Zionist, nationalist, and right-wing worldviews.”

The Religious Zionist Party responded to the announcement by calling on Shaked to pull out of the race for the upcoming elections.

“Shaked and Hendel together were far from passing the threshold,” the party stated. “Now that they separated, it’s clear that any vote for Shaked is a waste of votes and a danger to the right.”

“We call on Shaked to show responsibility for the right-wing bloc and the country and withdraw from the race and not cause the right to lose votes in a fateful election that may end with a left-wing government with the Joint List. We have no votes to waste.”

Shaked is now expected to form an alliance with the Bayit Yehudi party, another failing party with minimal members.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)