Hendel, Winter court would-be Gantz voters; coalition urges small right-wing parties to follow his lead

Opposition party leaders welcome Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz’s decision to withdraw from the October 27 election, as other small parties hovering around the electoral threshold seek to attract his supporters while members of the coalition call on them to follow suit and withdraw.

Yoaz Hendel, chairman of the Reservists-Economic Party, thanks Gantz for his years of service, saying he has “done what is right and necessary for the country.” He calls on voters of what he terms the “third bloc” to support his party, declaring that “the only way to establish a Zionist government is to vote for the Reservists and Economic Party.”

Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party similarly thanks Gantz for his decades of service, before urging Blue and White’s would-be voters to support him instead.

“Gantz’s withdrawal illustrates the importance of the People of Israel party in Israeli public life. Anyone who wants a right wing that serves in the military, acts decisively and is not dependent on Goldknopf’s 61st vote has only one political home – the People of Israel party,” it says.

Hendel, like Gantz, has refused to align himself with either the pro- or anti-Netanyahu bloc, while Winter has pledged to join only a Netanyahu-led government, even as the coalition has led a bitter top-down campaign to pressure Winter to withdraw. Both Hendel’s and Winter’s parties have been hovering around the electoral threshold for months.

Government ministers seize on the opportunity to urge Winter to follow Gantz’s lead and withdraw.

“Gantz’s withdrawal stems from his responsibility not to waste votes for the left-wing bloc,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party says, referring to the opposition bloc. “By contrast, on the right, there is a complete lack of responsibility on the part of Ofer Winter and the other splinter parties that are nowhere near the electoral threshold, yet insist on throwing votes in the trash and risk bringing to power a left-wing government with supporters of terrorism that will bring disaster upon the State of Israel.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, of Netanyahu’s Likud, similarly urges right-wing parties polling below or near the electoral threshold to “do what Benny Gantz did a short while ago: withdraw from the race.”

“The cost of wasting right-wing votes in this election could be fatal,” he warns, pointing to the 1992 election, when three small right-wing parties failed to cross the threshold. “Show responsibility for the sake of the people of Israel and the Land of Israel!”