Fake Likud site roasts party platform
Rival Zionist Union list set up sham Internet page listing follies of Netanyahu's party
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, but it’s unlikely the Zionist Union was looking to mimic the rival Likud party when it, or a rogue supporter, created a dummy website lampooning the ruling party’s platform.
As Israel’s election increasingly becomes a battle fought on social media, the fake website, a dead ringer for the real Likud site, is the latest jab in a heated campaign that has been noted for its level of mudslinging and ad hominem attacks.
The Hebrew-language website, located at https://likudparty.co.il/, has the same look and design as the official website of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, but the text does anything but toe the Likud line.
Beneath the title and party logo, and an introduction vowing to keep going with the same policies that it has applied in the past, the false site claims to offer the party’s platform, delivered as a catalog of alleged Likud failures.
Top of the list was a promise to neglect the threat of terror tunnels dug under the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel, a reference to underground passageways used by Hamas gunmen to infiltrate Israeli territory in the past. Next came assurances to abandon support for southern communities for another decade as well as a mini-war every year and a half.
Housing issues were to be dealt with by enormously increasing the cost of a new apartments, ignoring public housing demands, and real estate deals driven by the demands of property tycoons.
The website went on to promote a welfare program titled “Every Third Child In Poverty,” made assurances that ties with the US will be completely severed, and well, you get the idea.
At the bottom of the webpage a slogan urges voters to not vote for Netanyahu and his Likud party. A small Zionist Union logo give a clue as to who may have been behind the website.