Netanyahu urges Ben Gvir and Smotrich to unite their parties ahead of election

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls on Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism parties to run together in the upcoming election in order to prevent either from failing to pass the electoral threshold.

“They have to unite. Every time we were united, we won,” says Netanyahu in a video message. “When we were divided, we lost.”

Netanyahu adds that “I know they have their personal issues, they have to get over it. I’ll invite them in the coming days and we’ll make great efforts to unite [them].”

The two factions ran together in the most recent election in 2022, but split immediately following the vote.

A Zman Yisrael poll published today predicted that if the parties run separately, Religious Zionism will fail to cross the electoral threshold, and Otzma Yehudit will receive 6 seats. Were the parties to unite, the poll shows they would receive a combined eight seats in the Knesset.

In response, Ben Gvir attacks Netanyahu, accusing him of wanting the Otzma Yehudit party to be small so that he can ultimately join up with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party.

Ben Gvir accuses Netanyahu of seeking “to establish a ‘wide national government,'” saying that only strengthening his party, Smotrich and Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party “will allow the establishment of a fully right-wing government.”