Opposition rages at ‘corruption’ as PM filmed convincing small Haredi party to drop out of race

Opposition leaders raged Monday at what they alleged was “corruption” after a video surfaced of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a deal with Haim Yosef Abergel, a Haredi rabbi accused of sexual crimes against minors, to convince him to withdraw his fledgling Achi (My Brother) political party from the race ahead of the election, in exchange for a deputy ministerial position in the next government.

The deputy minister would advance the party’s ultra-Orthodox agenda from that position.

The conversation took place late last week, and its details were reported on Friday. It was led by Education Minister and senior Likud member Yoav Kisch, who was joined by Netanyahu over the phone.

In a new recording published late Sunday by Channel 13, the premier could be heard accepting the terms of the proposed arrangement.

“I’m putting you on speaker, prime minister,” Kisch says in the recording, asking Netanyahu to approve the deal he had just struck with Abergel. Kisch is heard in the video telling his aides to stop filming the conversation, seemingly to avoid having the agreement on camera.

Since current law dictates that a deputy minister, unlike a minister, must be a sitting lawmaker, Kisch says Likud will seek to change the law.

“We will appoint a deputy minister [from Achi] in the Prime Minister’s Office. We will try to change the law to also bring in someone who is not a member of Knesset, and that will be their appointment. If it takes time or we don’t succeed, then they can choose any Knesset member they want and he will be a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office who will [oversee] everything we agreed on,” Kisch says.

“Completely acceptable,” Netanyahu is then heard responding.

תיעוד בלעדי הערב במהדורה: הדיל המלא והמושחת בין ראש הממשלה נתניהו לבין הרב חיים יוסף אברג'ל שחשוד בעבירות מין בנשות קהילתו, חלקן היו קטינות. השר יואב קיש, המתווך, מבקש לסגור את המצלמה בחדר, ואז נתניהו מבטיח לרב לשנות את החוק ולהעניק לו תפקיד סגן שר במשרד ראש הממשלה, צפו בתיעוד: pic.twitter.com/T4IuqJ4Rgs

— יואלי ברים Yoeli Brim (@yoeli_brim) October 25, 2026

The video is believed to have been filmed shortly before Abergel announced on Friday that his party was dropping out of the race.

Netanyahu’s Likud party issued a statement just after Abergel’s statement, noting that it had reached a deal with Achi to appoint a representative of the party as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office “to advance our shared principles.”

Reacting to the newly published clip, opposition leaders expressed outrage at what they termed the “corruption” on display.

“The entire Jewish people must see this secret documentation,” B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett said on X. “A corrupt deal between Netanyahu himself and a Haredi leader, who sells out the soldiers and serving public for a job. This is what the elections are about.”

Avigdor Liberman, chair of the hawkish opposition Yisrael Beiteinu party, also slammed Netanyahu over the video: “Bibi sent his ‘education’ minister to negotiate with Rabbi Chaim Yosef Abergel about withdrawing from the race, including a promise to change the law to grant him a deputy minister position in the Prime Minister’s Office. These are the distorted priorities of Bibi’s government.”

Yoaz Hendel, the head of the Reservists-Economic party, said that “While Netanyahu is investing millions to discredit me and the reservists, he is closing dubious deals with draft evaders and suspected criminals.”

Achi was launched as a national party in June by disciples of Abergel, a prominent rabbi and yeshiva leader from the southern city of Netivot, who was arrested in August last year on suspicion of sexual offenses against young girls. He is the son of late Rabbi Yoram Abergel, who himself was a prominent Haredi leader in Netivot.

Abergel was later released to house arrest. The case against him is ongoing.

The party, which set itself apart from the dominant Shas party by supporting ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF and integration of secular curriculum into Haredi education, enjoyed significant local support in Netivot, though it consistently polled well below the 3.25 percent national threshold needed to enter the Knesset.

The push to get Achi to drop out of the election came as Netanyahu has been pressuring several small parties to withdraw ahead of the vote, most notably Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party and Moti Leitner’s Charedi Public Party, over concerns that votes for the right-wing bloc will go to waste if the parties don’t enter the Knesset.

Those parties have steadfastly refused the calls to exit the race, with neither forecast to enter the Knesset in any of the final polls published ahead of Tuesday’s vote.