Itamar Ben-Gvir said Thursday that his Otzma Yehudit party would not join Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party on a joint electoral ticket, rebuffing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public appeal for the two far-right factions to reunite ahead of Israel’s upcoming Knesset election.
Netanyahu issued a video message Thursday urging the two party leaders to overcome what he called their personal differences and form a combined slate. He warned that separate candidacies could cost the right-wing bloc parliamentary representation if smaller parties fail to clear Israel’s electoral threshold. “They have to unite,” Netanyahu said, adding that he intends to bring Ben-Gvir and Smotrich together in coming days to seek an agreement.
Ben-Gvir responded by accusing Netanyahu of seeking to weaken Otzma Yehudit in order to gain greater flexibility to form a broader government after the election. “You want a small Otzma Yehudit so you can go with Eisenkot,” Ben-Gvir said, referring to former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party. He argued instead for “a large Otzma Yehudit” and for Smotrich to run alongside Ofer Winter, a former IDF brigadier general who has emerged as a political figure on the right.
The dispute has potentially significant implications for Netanyahu’s bloc. A Zman Yisrael poll cited by The Times of Israel projected that if the parties ran separately, the Religious Zionism party would not pass the electoral threshold while Otzma Yehudit would win six seats. A reunited list, according to that poll, would win eight seats.
