Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on his potential key allies, Religious Zionism, to “stop shooting inside the armored troops carrier,” which is an Israeli more aggressive paraphrase of President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s adage about having your enemies inside the tent aiming out, rather than outside the tent aiming in.
The reality is that the Smotrich-Ben Gvir alliance want more seats before Tuesday’s election, and planting in the minds of right-wing voters the notion that Netanyahu would make a better right-wing leader with Smotrich and Ben Gvir at his side should work to consolidate Religious Zionism’s hold on 14+ mandates. With Gantz’s National Camp stuck around 11-12 mandates in the polls, a Smotrich-Ben Gvir threat to walk should Bibi pick Gantz as his partner, could bust a Likud deal with the left, as it did the deal with Ra’am.
The political map of the two main blocs has not changed, according to a Kan 11 Sunday night poll, but there have been interesting shifts within the blocs.
Right-Wing Bloc
Likud 31 + Religious Zionism 13 + Shas 9 + United Torah Judaism 7 = 60
Left-Wing Bloc:
Yesh Atid 24 + National Camp 12 + Israel Beiteinu 6 + Labor 5 + Meretz 5 = 52
Arab Parties
Ra’am 4 + Hadash Ta’al 4 = 8
To be fair, no one in Religious Zionism or Otzma Yehudit was attacking Netanyahu. The attack came from a revelation by Kan 11 News of a secret recording of Bezalel Smotrich in which he calls Netanyahu a liar regarding his denial of the efforts to recruit the Muslim Brothers party, a.k.a. Ra’am. It was Smotrich who stood on his hind legs and refused to join a right-wing coalition government with Ra’am, and so, what Israel got instead was a left-wing government with Ra’am.
Likud members on Sunday night received talking points that attack Smotrich and ben Gvir in a mild tone, saying: “Religious Zionism will in any case be part of our government, 100 percent, but what Lapid wants is to bring as many mandates as possible to form the next government. That’s why we see in the media all the recordings and reports about Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Likud must be the biggest and the strongest party, to ensure that the Likud forms the next government.”
Here’s the thing, though: over the past few years, there have been leaks of several secret recordings of MK Bezalel Smotrich, all of which were well timed to serve his ends, suggesting––as most Israeli media, left and right, agree––the source of those leaks was the guy speaking. The Lapid campaign doesn’t have access to secret recordings of Bezalel Smotrich, but Bezalel Smotrich does. And Smotrich and Ben Gvir are doing their best to siphon away votes from Likud, Shas, and United Torah Judaism, to secure for themselves a dominant role in the next Netanyahu government.
Smotrich also responded to the Kan 11 revelation and said at a meeting of campaign activists in Ashkelon: “I talked with Netanyahu; we can’t let them create a conflict between us. Together we will establish a national, Jewish, and Zionist government.”
Smotrich explained that “someone leaked some old recording of mine from a long time ago.”
Nuff said.
MK Itamar Ben Gvir on Sunday night responded to the leaked recording, saying: “I didn’t like the things that were said, because I do have criticisms of Netanyahu, but I don’t think it’s necessary to use a personal tone, and certainly not to speak in that style.”
The leak was cause for celebration for Ra’am Chairman Mansour Abbas, who proclaimed that this was yet another “testimony that proves the truth of what I’ve been said throughout the last year – Likud offered us a full coalition agreement and promised us a strategic political partnership.”
There are many scenarios so far about the outcome in November, should the results at the polls reflect accurately the stalemate all the polls have been predicting: Netanyahu gets called to establish a coalition government and must enlist someone from the other camp, no idea whom; Netanyahu fails but establishes a 60-seat coalition government that could collapse in the near future; Netanyahu fails and new elections are declared, leaving Lapid in charge as PM of a provisional government; Netanyahu fails and at least some Haredim desert him and join forces with Gantz to establish a left-wing coalition.
Or the polls could be wrong. This, too, has happened.
