Communications Minister David Amsalem (Likud) responded Tuesday to reports about his party’s contacts with Zehut chairman Moshe Feiglin and the possibility of Feiglin getting a ministerial portfolio in the next Netanyahu government in exchange for retiring from the race, saying, “It’s an urban legend. He won’t get anything.”
In an interview on Reshet Bet radio, Amsalem attacked Feiglin, saying, “Why should he get anything? He has national responsibility and he knows he’s burning up [rightwing] votes.”
Amsalem referred to reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered the Zehut chairman to step down and not run in the upcoming elections, and in return Netanyahu would appoint him to a senior economic portfolio without being a Knesset member.
When asked why Yamina’s chairwoman Ayelet Shaked had not been invited to join the Likud, the communications minister replied that she would not have contributed to the Likud specifically nor to the rightwing camp in general.
On the security escalation in the south, Amsalem said that the Israeli government’s restraint is a positive thing: “If the prime minister had not been acting with restraint, I guess by now we would have been past several rounds of fighting in Gaza,” Amsalem said.
Amsalem attacked the election commission chairman, Justice Hanan Meltzer’s decision to ban security TV cameras in polling stations, saying, “It’s a scandalous decision. We took over a million and a half dollars from the party’s budget to watch our polls, we expected him to say ‘well done.'”
