Candidate leaves Ofer Winter’s party amid pressure, fear of wasting votes

Davidi Ben Zion, a candidate running for Knesset with Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party, dropped out of the race on Tuesday, two weeks before the October 27 election.

Ben Zion, the acting head of the Samaria Regional Council, which includes settlements in the northern West Bank, made the decision out of fear that the party would not beat the threshold for entry into the Knesset, which would mean that its voters’ ballots would go to waste, Channel 12 reported.

Ben Zion, the acting head of the Samaria Regional Council, which includes settlements in the northern West Bank, made the decision out of fear that the party would not beat the threshold for entry into the Knesset, which would mean that its voters’ ballots would go to waste. Polls have placed the party on the verge of entering the Knesset, with some showing it falling short.

Citing recent poor poll figures, Ben Zion told Winter he “prefers to be responsible and drop out,” the network said.

Ben Zion was No. 8 on the slate, and therefore had no realistic prospect of making it into the Knesset, anyway, according to the polling.

He also faced a pressure campaign, with pro-Netanyahu activists allegedly putting up billboards calling on him to drop out. The billboards were placed near his home and at the bus stop his children use en route to school, according to Channel 12.

The billboards read, “Davidi, step down! Don’t endanger the country.”

Ben Zion assured party leader Winter in a phone call that his decision was based on doing what he felt was best for the voters, and not because he had been offered any incentive by another party, Channel 12 reported, citing unnamed sources in his orbit.

The Kan public broadcaster reported that Ben Zion also announced his move to other members of his party, saying he was stepping down due to the pressure he was facing, writing, “My wife and children before everything.”

In a message to an unnamed person that included a photo of a poster apparently urging him to quite the race in the Elon Moreh settlement, Ben Zion wrote, “My whole settlement is full. My wife is broken.”

The People of Israel party lamented Ben Zion’s departure in a statement, thanking him for joining the campaign.

“Dear Davidi, we love you,” it said. “We feel bad about the pressures, the threats, and the harassment your children and family were made to endure from those who aren’t ready for new, clean forces to enter Israeli politics. Not everyone can take the illegitimate and despicable pressures that you and your family faced.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly attacked Winter, congratulated Ben Zion on the decision, calling it “important” and telling Winter’s other candidates to follow suit.

The head of the coalition Religious Zionism Party, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also congratulated Ben Zion on his “courageous and not easy step of national responsibility.”

Writing on X, Smotrich, whose own party is predicted to only just beat the threshold, likewise called on Winter to “do the right, desired move in light of the polls,” which show him failing to enter the Knesset.

Yosef Hadad, the No. 2 on the People of Israel slate, told Kan that the party is facing “an ugly campaign financed by enormous budgets, whose whole aim is to crush us as though we are the enemy. And it is coming from the right, from what is called our home.”

He said those carrying out the campaign “use repulsive methods and not everyone is able to withstand them, especially when it comes to their own family.”