From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 6, 2026
Beersheba mayor reportedly turns down Netanyahu offer of No. 3 slot on Likud slate, top portfolio and title of deputy PM
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly offered the third slot on the Likud Knesset slate, and the promise of a senior ministerial portfolio, to Beersheba Mayor Ruvik Danilovich, but the mayor turned him down.
Netanyahu has slots 3, 9 and 15 to allocate to personal choices on the Likud slate, and has until Tuesday night to fill them.
According to Channel 12, Netanyahu sweetened his offer to Danilovich with the pledge to also make him a deputy prime minister if he forms the next government. Likud surveys reportedly showed the popular mayor to be capable of drawing significant additional support to Likud.
After Danilovich turned down Netanyahu, he was asked to reconsider, said no again, was asked to reconsider again, and said no a third time, the TV report says. It adds that Netanyahu is courting other mayors, among other possibilities, to fill the empty slots.
Netanyahu has tried thus far in vain to persuade Ofer Winter, head of the new People of Israel party, to merge into Likud, with the offer of multiple slots on the Likud slate, or to have Winter agree to a technical merger with Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, which would see the parties run together but give them the option of splitting up following the vote.
Danilovich was also reportedly approached by leading opposition parties including Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar. He was reportedly courted by the Labor Party in the 2019 elections and by Likud in 2022.
Meanwhile, Channel 12 also reports that a merger between Yashar and B’Yachad is looking less and less likely, because extensive surveys showed that such a partnership would send 2% of the parties’ current voters into the Netanyahu-led bloc.
Bennett was ready to be “very generous” as regards a merger, the report says, implying he was not insisting on leading it, while Eisenkot was ready to be generous in terms of allocating slots to B’Yachad on a merged slate, but the unpromising survey data appears to have held sway.
The Times of Israel Community.