Netanyahu’s Strategy for achieving 61 seats

The last thing Benjamin Netanyahu wants is for voters to start focusing on his political partners in Religious Zionism and the Haredi parties, 

By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ

Benjamin Netanyahu’s political allies are acting as if they have already won the election.

First it was Shas leader Arye Dery, who, in a radio interview two weeks ago, was asked how under the terms of his plea bargain (for tax evasion) he could be a minister in the next government. Dery angrily responded that if the High Court of Justice dared to intervene, the Netanyahu government would pass an “overriding clause” and bypass the courts.

Next was United Torah Judaism’s top candidate, Yitzchak Goldknopf – a newcomer to frontline politics who, in a series of television interviews, supplied gems such as “studying Torah is harder than being sent [as a soldier] to the front line” and “I haven’t seen in 20 years that [studying] math helped the national economy.”

He went on to say that he should be finance minister in the Netanyahu government.

This was just an intro for Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich’s demand that he be named defense minister in the next government. And while we’re speaking of Religious Zionism, we’ve been treated in recent days to the sight of Smotrich’s co-leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, waving a handgun in East Jerusalem and ordering the security forces there to shoot at stone throwers.

On Tuesday, the far-right party presented its “Plan for Law and Justice to Amend the Justice System and Strengthen Israeli Democracy” – a detailed program including not only “overriding” clauses, but also the abolition of the “breach of trust” charge that, coincidentally, would absolve one Benjamin Netanyahu of most of the charges for which he is currently on trial.

This is a problem for Netanyahu, who wants to make the election campaign a straight choice between his leadership and that of Yair Lapid’s “leftist” coalition, including the Arab parties. The last thing Netanyahu wants is for voters to start focusing on his own coalition. He has tried to play down his allies’ statements, claiming that no change of legislation would affect his trial.

Not only is this disingenuous, as no court would continue to conduct a trial based on charges that are no longer criminal under Israeli law. But he also finds himself in the difficult position of having to distance himself from what he calls “Likud’s natural allies” – the three parties that are locked into his future coalition and whom he needs for any possible majority.

To reach the Knesset majority that has eluded him in the previous four elections, Netanyahu needs three things:

1. To boost the turnout of his own right-wing base.

2. To try to win over a few of the last remaining wavering voters, who in the previous election voted for right-wing parties that joined the Naftali Bennett-Lapid coalition.

3. Try to keep the anti-Netanyahu bloc, especially the Arab community, relatively calm so that turnout there doesn’t increase.

The problem for Netanyahu is that the type of messaging that brings out right-wingers who are less inclined to vote – such as the “Arabs are voting in their droves” video he used at the last minute on Election Day in 2015 – is exactly the type that could also boost turnout in the other camp. And since even Netanyahu can’t say two different things at once, his campaign in recent days has focused mainly on calling for Likudniks to bring their friends and relatives to vote, so they can finally reach the magic number of 61 lawmakers, and much less on any specific message.

Meanwhile, Likud is planning to devote most of its resources to pinpointing those thousands of stay-at-home voters and bombarding them with phone calls and text messages – and, if necessary, actually sending people around to their homes on Election Day.

But there’s a limit to the control Netanyahu has over his allies. For the past few months he’s managed to keep the more embarrassing Likud members out of sight. But he can’t stop Goldknopf from saying stupid things on television or Ben-Gvir from farcically drawing his gun.

And it’s not just about control. There is a real tactical disagreement within the Netanyahu camp.

“Netanyahu may think that with a calming campaign he can win another Knesset seat or two from the soft right,” says Simcha Rothman, a Religious Zionism lawmaker who authored his party’s judicial reform plan. “But there are 10 or 20 ‘Knesset seats’ sitting at home waiting for someone to say something clear to them.”

Which strategy proves more effective will only be seen on November 1, but Netanyahu has another headache in addition to trying to reach 61 seats.

The polls show that Likud is steadily losing voters within the right-wing bloc to Religious Zionism. The polling average indicates that as many as four seats’ worth of voters have shifted from Likud to Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s party. Those voters are still backing Netanyahu for prime minister, but, assuming he wins, they will also give Religious Zionism’s leaders a lot more bargaining power and influence over both appointments and policy when he forms his governing coalition.

In an attempt to stem the flow, Netanyahu has been broadcasting two messages in recent days: one in a campaign video, saying that “Lapid and Gantz are leftists. Likud won’t go with them, in a rotation [government] or any other way.” The other was in an interview where he insisted that “Religious Zionism will be in my government in any case, but we need a big Likud so we can prevent a left-wing government and so we can govern. A governing party needs to be big and strong, and hold onto the main portfolios: defense and finance.”

In other words, he’s trying to tell his far-right base not to worry as they will be part of his government no matter what, and the soft right that he will be the one in charge of that government, not the extremists.

Netanyahu’s built-in coalition is one of his main political assets; one he has spent much of his career building. In recent years, they have stuck with him through thick and thin, even when forced out of office. But now, as he is grasping at what could be his last chance of a comeback, they are also proving to be his biggest liability.