Lagging in polls, Netanyahu warns small right-wing parties could hand election to ‘fascist’ left

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a public appeal on Monday to voters not to support smaller right-wing parties that may not pass the 3.25 percent electoral threshold in the October 27 election, warning that it could destroy the current coalition’s chances of retaining power and lead to the election of a “fascist regime.”

“This election will be decided by every vote. Don’t waste your vote on small parties that may not pass the threshold and bring the left to power. Don’t waste votes. Keep the right. Vote for Likud,” the premier declared in a Hebrew social media post.

The video was published on Netanyahu’s Instagram account a day before hawkish ex-IDF general Ofer Winter is slated to launch a new party which polls suggest could draw a significant number of votes from the far-right, weakening the parties that currently make up the governing coalition.

The prime minister is lagging in the polls ahead of the October 27 elections, but the Zionist opposition is generally polling just short of a 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Netanyahu argued in the video that the 1992 general election was proof that voting for smaller right-wing parties was a mistake, as the bloc led by Labor leader Yitzhak Rabin won a decisive victory, ushering in the Oslo Peace Accords, because breakaway right-wing parties established by those angry with then-Likud prime minister Yitzhak Shamir failed to pass the electoral threshold.

“We paid with thousands upon thousands of murdered citizens and thousands of casualties, and we are still dealing with this problem today, all stemming from that mistake, where splinter right-wing parties fell out and brought down the right-wing government,” Netanyahu said, appearing to attribute all terror-related deaths to the Oslo Accords. “Now, are we going to make this mistake again?” he asked.

Netanyahu made no mention of the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion, the biggest massacre in modern Israeli history, which occurred on his watch and after he had held power for some 13 of the previous 14.5 years.

Turning to the present day, Netanyahu warned that if parties opposed to his government win the election on October 27, they will “immediately surrender; they will sell the state.”

“There’ll be a fascist regime” running Israel, preventing free speech, including by “closing the internet” and shutting down the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, he predicted.

Netanyahu’s government has pushed for extensive media reform over the past few years, and in July voted to significantly expand government control over Israel’s broadcast media and news sector. It has also led a concerted effort to subjugate the judiciary.

Netanyahu’s post highlighted concerns on the right that the field has become overcrowded by an influx of new parties started by disaffected nationalist politicians and first-time hopefuls aimed at drawing votes away from Likud and forcing a compromise with Zionist opposition parties.

In addition to Winter’s new party, right-wing Arab-Israeli activist and influencer Yoseph Haddad has registered his own new party, dubbed Brave Israel.

Several other new factions, including Sharren Haskel’s Israel First, Yuli Edelstein and Gilad Erdan’s Unity, and Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper’s Zionist Home-The Reservists, are all expected to fall short of the electoral threshold unless they coalesce within the next two weeks before final candidate lists must be submitted.

According to a poll aired Sunday by national broadcaster Kan, Winter’s party has the potential to pass the electoral threshold.

Another poll aired by Channel 12 on Monday likewise found that Winter would win the minimum four seats needed to enter the Knesset. However, he would so at the expense of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, which would then fail to pass the 3.25% threshold and as a result shrink the bloc of parties supporting Netanyahu to 49 seats in total, far short of the 61 needed to form a government and one fewer than it would receive without Winter’s party.

The anti-Netanyahu bloc, meanwhile, would win 60 seats, just shy of a majority and one more than it would win otherwise. Arab parties would win 11 seats.

Eisenkot’s Yashar was predicted to win 24 seats by Channel 12, while Likud received 21, one less than the Kan survey though consistent with a poll released going into the weekend by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site. Additionally, the Channel 12 survey found that 44% of voters prefer Eisenkot to prime minister versus 34% for Netanyahu, though prime ministers are not elected directly. The remaining 16% were undecided.