In his cabinet meeting last Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu berated Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett for his party’s relentless attacks over unkept promises to find proper alternative housing for the expelled residents of Amona – which have grown into a hunger strike outside the PM’s residence. Netanyahu rejected the attacks and made clear that he plans to live up to his promise.
But according to a report in NRG Tuesday night, Habayit Hayehudi is not exactly trusting of Netanyahu and decided to deliver an unofficial ultimatum: as long as the government does not declare where and when it plans to rebuild Amona, the religious Zionist party will withhold its support for the “V15 bill,” designed to protect mostly the Likud party against its enemies on the left.
V15 was a seemingly extra-political group which, using lavish donations from the US State Dept., among other sources, targeted Netanyahu, making its toppling a unifying, non-partisan goal. According to the polls going into the last week before the March 2015 election, the strategy was effective, with the Zionist Camp (formerly Labor) showing a slight lead over Likud. In the end, Netanyahu pulled all the stops with aggressive online messages, including some blatantly anti-Arab ones, and managed to siphon about six additional seats, mostly from Habayit Hayehudi – but Netanyahu continues to fear such a “unifying” effort against him next election, with a message of “anyone but Bibi.”
And so, the “V15 Bill” limits the ability of non-partisan groups to spread their cash around, forcing them to obey the same regulations which political parties do. The bill sets up levels of fund-raising amounts, with increased scrutiny in direct proportion to the donations collected.
According to NRG, the bill was scheduled for a debate at the Knesset Committee, but was withdrawn at the last-minute due to objections from Habayit Hayehudi.
“This law was tailor-made to the needs of Likud which is why it’s so important to them,” anonymous senior sources in Habayit Hayehudi told NRG, who made clear they were not planning to give in on this one. It makes sense, since the rebuilding of Amona is as crucial to their relationship with their core voters as the V15 bill is to Netanyahu’s chances to be re-elected.