Brushing off dire polling, Shaked says Jewish Home will ‘run to the end’
Swatting away reports she may succumb to pressure to quit the race, interior minister affirms her party is staying in, insisting she is the right’s ticket to power
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel
Jewish Home leader and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked insisted on Tuesday evening that she plans to run her poorly polling party in next week’s elections, despite sources confirming that she had consulted advisers on potentially withdrawing from the race.
“I’m here to stop the rumor factory, I’m running to the end,” Shaked told reporters in a Tel Aviv press conference.
Seven days away from the November 1 election, Shaked’s Jewish Home continues to poll far below the 3.25% of the vote necessary to be seated in the next Knesset. A Monday survey by Kan news found the party with less than half the required support, at only 1.6%.
Although Shaked has professed her desire to sit in a right-wing government led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, his bloc continues to drag her down in public statements, fearing that Shaked is not strong enough to make it into Knesset and will burn precious right-wing votes that could have otherwise go toward parties supporting him.
Echoing Netanyahu’s own words to calm down intra-bloc discord, Shaked said that right-religious parties should “stop with the friendly fire.”
“Great pressures are being exerted on me day and night, trying to do everything to break me,” she added.
Netanyahu’s bloc is polling on the cusp of a majority, with some 60 seats out of the 120 seats in the Knesset, while the outgoing coalition parties have about 56, and the Hadash-Ta’al Arab alliance is seen heading for 4 — a recipe for further potential political deadlock.
Shaked reaffirmed her longstanding line that her party has the potential to break that tie.
“All of the surveys say the same thing, the right wing doesn’t have the seats,” Shaked said, adding that if her party crosses the electoral threshold, she will hand Netanyahu’s bloc enough seats to clinch a government.
“I’m not asking for any role [in such a government],” the interior minister said, in response to reporters’ questions on the matter.
Jewish Home’s number two, Yossi Brodny, added that internal polling that showed a chunk of voters wanted Jewish Home in a Netanyahu-led government had pushed the party to stay in the race.
Earlier in the day, reports swirled that Shaked was considering bowing the party out of the race, as Likud and Religious Zionism have asked her to do.
A source close to Brodny confirmed the reports and said the internal polling data helped sway the decision to carry on.
A separate source from Shaked’s former Yamina camp within Jewish Home denied the reports and insisted that Shaked had always planned to trudge on.
After inheriting the gutted Yamina party from former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Shaked experimented with the now-defunct Zionist Spirit alliance before moving on to lead Jewish Home.
Having been Bennett’s political partner for almost a decade, Shaked received considerable flak from right-wing voters who felt she and Yamina betrayed their base by forming a big tent coalition in June 2021.
Shaked has invested considerable resources and airtime apologizing for helping to form the outgoing government, although she continues to serve in it.
“I’ve always been loyal to my values and I’m not giving up,” the interior minister added on Tuesday. “Give me the chance to represent you.”
