T. Belman. I agree with Ashley Perry. If they reach the threshold, they will join the Likud government,
The Media Line|
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who until recently was former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s No. 2 in the Yamina party, agreed on Wednesday on a joint run for the Knesset with Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel and his two-MK Derech Eretz party.
Their decision to run together as the Zionist Spirit faction in the November 1 election is seen as increasing Opposition Leader and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of returning to the Prime Minister’s Office.
But Zionist Spirit leader Shaked on Saturday evening presented the party as an alternative for right-wing voters who are opposed to Netanyahu and what she called “his extremist political partners,” which includes the Religious Zionism party led by MK Bezalel Smotrich and the Otzma Yehudit party led by MK Itamar Ben-Gvir. The latter two men are also considering a joint run for the Knesset.<
“The Israeli Right is really not just [Likud MK] Miri Regev, Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir,” Shaked said during an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday.
“I’ll campaign until the end and we’ll achieve a good result. There is a large part of the public that is looking for this Zionist Spirit, that wants a proper government and does not want to be held down by Smotrich’s machine of hate or the whims of Netanyahu. This has a place in Israeli society and we represent it,” Shaked continued.<
Ashley Perry, a global communications strategist and a former senior adviser to Israeli government ministers, said the formation of Zionist Spirit gives Netanyahu a greater chance of realizing his goal of returning to the premiership.
He explained that Shaked said she was not ruling out serving under Netanyahu, and that nothing in the agreement between the two parties that make up the Zionist Spirit faction precluded the possibility.
Shaked said on Saturday, “Netanyahu is the head of the Likud party. I don’t think you can disqualify the votes of over a million people. Likud is a possible partner in a unity government, and Netanyahu is its leader.”
Perry said that if Netanyahu and his natural bloc win 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset, then he will be prime minister. If he wins close to that and Shaked-Hendel and company pass the electoral threshold, “I think that they would cross over [and join a Netanyahu-led government] – not overly happily, but I think they would, given the numbers.”
Dr. Ilana Shpaizman, a lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, also believes that Zionist Spirit would most likely join Netanyahu in a coalition despite Hendel having long opposed this.
“Hendel is probably not fond of the idea but given his record of changing parties, he would probably join as well,” she said.
She added that whether they would serve with Netanyahu or not, Zionist Spirit running for the Knesset probably has a positive effect for Netanyahu “because the party’s voters are part of the Netanyahu bloc, so the anti-Netanyahu bloc will lose votes,” she said.
Depending on the results of the election, said Perry, Zionist Spirit could also join a government under Yesh Atid chairman and current interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid. “It wouldn’t be Shaked’s first-case scenario, but I think that [Derech Eretz No. 2 Zvi] Hauser and Hendel would have less of a problem with this,” he said.
Perry said that Yamina and Derech Eretz are like-minded parties that could help each other pass the electoral threshold.
Shpaizman said that the secular Shaked could not join with an existing party because Religious Zionism is too radical (religiously) for her, and the Likud does not want her.
Moreover, added Shpaizman, “she wants to appeal to right-wing voters who do not want Netanyahu and who perhaps are more liberally religious and do not want to vote for Smotrich.”
Perry said that Zionist Spirit’s typical voters are right-wing but not extreme Right, and not necessarily “religiously right” in the sense of being close to ultra-Orthodox observance.
He added that there is a crowded field of parties appealing to right-wing voters.
Although Zionist Spirit edged across the electoral threshold in the first poll conducted after the merger was announced, Shpaizman believes it has little chance of doing so on November 1.
Son of revered settlement leader joins Shaked and Hendel
Israel National News-Arutz Sheva has learned that Shaked met in recent days with Yossi Brodny, the mayor of Givat Shmuel who will lead the Jewish Home party in the upcoming elections. In the conversation between the two, several scenarios of running together came up, and Shaked is ready to offer Brodny the third place on the party list.
An announcement is expected next week.
@Ted
Quite so.
I think that Shaked and Hendel will have a difficult time allying with a Left wing govt which is actively divorcing the territory of Judea from the Jewish people, as it fills the lands with Arabs. Personally, I do not have so short a memory as to have forgotten the harms that these prodigal sons of the Right enabled when they allied with the Left and the Arabs, but what is taking place now is a tragedy of an entirely different nature, and one which I believe the components of Zionist Spirit will have no choice but to solidify with Bibi to form a govt, without the criminal Gantz.
As for the right, they need this Yamina 2.0 project to succeed as the latest polling demonstrates:
New poll predicts deadlock following November elections
Without Shaked, the Right has a limited opportunity to successfully avoid the dilemma of the past several elections, currently in any case.
The greatest problem for Shaked’s latest party, as I see it, is that their messaging is terribly inconsistent. Every party has many voices, but Zionist Spirit has the Yamina baggage that must be kept as far from recollection as possible and the waffling issue between Shaked and Hendel on the topic of with-Bibi vs never-with-Bibi will help keep the Yamina betrayal clearly in mind when voters go to the polls. I hope that they are able to overcome this, or that Bibi manipulates his own advantage to support their project, and that Shaked’s leadership proves to be more supportive of the Right than Bennett did.
I am seriously concerned that there will be no Right wing govt without a successful Zionist Spirit – forgive the double entendre here, but I believe both meanings of this statement will prove to be true.
1 ) Netanyahu has never been or is a right-wing politician.
The judgments are by deeds. And then we see that Netanyahu’s place on the political scale is a little to the left of the center.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir can be called right-wing politicians.
But, firstly, they will at best get one portfolio in the Government, secondly, even they ( IMHO) are not right enough to talk about saving the project of ’48, which is moving towards the precipice.
2) I have long concluded that by agreeing to the introduction of universal suffrage ( without qualifications), the community in question is dooming itself.
Examples are enough. Unfortunately, Israel is among them.
Look at the polls. After a year of monstrous politics, Netanyahu’s potential bloc is gaining 61-62 votes at best.
How can we give a voice to Israel’s fierce enemies, to those who want it dead, and expect strategic success against the Islamoids?
Reposting from earlier comment:
So is it Shaked’s vision or Hendel’s vision that people should expect from this party which is vital for the Right to gain their majority? This would be a good time for Shaked to have another of her telling hot mike moments where she accidentally but conveniently explains her party’s real position. Sarcasm aside, this inconsistent messaging upon this party’s willingness to form a Right wing govt is both concerning and revealing. Such ‘yes, no, maybe’ waffling is just the sort of obscurity which Shaked can ill afford to characterize what voters should expect from her party, given the course that Yamina took in the last election. She needs to clarify this point, and quickly.
How many parties can run together as a faction?