Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has decided to accept an opportunity to address a massive right-wing rally in Tel Aviv tonight, but opponents have appealed to the Elections Committee to prohibit political speeches at the event.
The rally is expected to draw far more than the 35,000 people who attended a left-wing rally last week.
His speech will win him automatic coverage in Israeli media, although it is almost certain that the media that support the “anyone but Bibi” campaign will try to cast him in a negative light.
Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) Naftali Bennett, Likud Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz and Likud Knesset Member Miri Regev also are scheduled to speak at the rally.
The leftist parties are in a panic. Backed by most establishment media, the campaign for the Herzog-Livni duo may have been peaked two days too soon.
Peace Now complained Saturday night that the planned rally is illegal because regional councils in Judea and Samaria are providing free buses to take residents to the rally. The Elections Committee will decide later today if tax money is being used for political purposes.
The left-wing Meretz party has demanded that Netanyahu and other politicians be barred from making any political speeches at the rally because of the sponsorship by regional councils that are not allowed to finance campaigns.
It would be interesting to know who paid for buses to bring people to the left-wing rally last week.
Israel’s leftist establishment does not seem so concerned about strong suspicions of far graver violations – that the Obama administration is funding activists trying to defeat Netanyahu.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Lee Zeldin have asked the IRS for information on the possibility that American taxpayers’ money is being used illegally to finance the “anyone but Bibi” campaign.