The chairwoman of the Yemina party, Ayelet Shaked, spoke on Monday evening during a dati leumi conference, warning of the danger facing the right-wing and dati leumi communities, stating, “we are on the verge of disaster”.

Shaked was also critical of how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was treating her party. “I am turning to the entire dati leumi community from here and to the secular right-wing ideological camp, those who care about the State of Israel – we are in a critical time. This is a most significant election, not a simple one. We can reach 61 but it will be difficult. The public needs to act responsibly, to only vote for parties that will pass the minimum electoral threshold. Netanyahu wants us to be small and weak – we will be large and strong. When we entered politics, Netanyahu spoke about two nations for two people and today, he speaks of sovereignty [over all of Yehuda and Shomron].

She explained that after early elections were declared, she sat down with Naftali Bennet over a period of a number of weeks to discuss the process that would lead to uniting the right-wing camp, because she was unwilling to be a part of a process that does not unite the camp. She was referring to the fact that Otzma Yehudit did not join her list but insisted on remaining independent when agreement could not be reached towards uniting.

Simultaneously, she was approached by a number of MKs to join Likud, and she weighed this option too. “An ideological politician can influence in every place. When I succeeded in persuading Bennet that we can head towards achdus, I took the lead of the New Right [party] and set off. The public is sleepy and does not understand the magnitude of the hour. It will not be easy to form a right-wing government, but it is possible.”

Regarding parties that will not pass the minimum electoral threshold, in this case, Otzma Yehudit, she added that on Election Day, such parties generally perform poorer than predicted in the polls, which in this case show the party will not reach the 3.5% minimum.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)