Netanyahu said mulling setting up satellite party to siphon votes from right-wing rivals in next election

Anticipating a potential failure to salvage his teetering coalition once the Knesset returns from hiatus in October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has increased the frequency of political consultations ahead of the next national elections, the Ynet news site reports, citing unnamed political sources close to the premier.

One of the challenges under discussion is reportedly how to optimize the makeup of the parties in his bloc, mainly how to convince Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism and Avi Maoz’s one-man Noam party to run on a joint electoral slate, like they did in the 2022 election.

Netanyahu is also said to be considering the option of setting up a satellite party that will attract right-wingers who are unwilling to support Netanyahu’s Likud or the parties in his current bloc, seeking to siphon votes of rivals such as Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman.

One of the options examined, according to the sources cited by Ynet, is having a party headed by former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen or former IDF generals Ofer Winter or Deddi Simchi, among others. However, none of these names has proven to be sufficiently popular, the report says.

These political consultations also reportedly discussed internal Likud politics, and yielded the need to quickly advance the merger with Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party, a move that was announced last week.

Netanyahu is said to be aiming to avoid holding elections for new members of the Likud Central Committee in light of his current strong hold over the ruling party’s mechanisms, telling his aides to examine if this is legally possible.