Winter says may have erred pledging support for PM; Smotrich offers him minister role to quit

People of Israel party leader Ofer Winter acknowledged on Wednesday that it “may not have been right” to announce at the start of his election campaign that his party would back only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as premier, as he faced a pressure campaign by the prime minister and his allies to drop out of the race with less than a week to go until the nation goes to the polls.

“Maybe it wasn’t necessarily right to say that at the beginning,” Winter said in a Channel 12 interview, but clarified that he was still “part of the right-wing camp, and I’m not saying now that I’ll move to the other side.”

The former IDF brigadier general pledged early in his election campaign that he would refuse to serve in a government headed by Yashar chair Gadi Eisenkot and would only back Netanyahu.

People of Israel has been hovering around the electoral threshold in polls for weeks, and failing to clear it in many of the surveys.

Netanyahu’s Likud party, along with Finance Minister and Religious Zionism chair Bezalel Smotrich, have been leading an aggressive campaign against Winter, fearing that in an election where every ballot counts, his party could take votes from better-established right-wing parties and waste them if it fails to cross the threshold.

Despite Winter’s clarification, Likud claimed that his comments to Channel 12 were proof that he would take votes from the right and give them to a “left-wing government” led by Eisenkot.

The No. 2 candidate on the People of Israel list, Yoseph Haddad, rejected Likud’s claim and clarified that the party intended to remain loyal to Netanyahu despite what he described as a campaign of attacks and smears by the prime minister and his allies.

“Party chairman Ofer Winter said from the very beginning that we would recommend Netanyahu, and that is what we will do, even when Netanyahu himself and others in the coalition are going after us and working against us,” Haddad said, promising that the party would not “move a millimeter from the promises we made to the public.”

Winter and other People of Israel candidates have refused to entertain the idea of dropping out of the race so close to the election, despite increasingly intense efforts by Netanyahu and Smotrich to get them to do so, including meeting with the party leader’s personal rabbi on Tuesday.

Winter responded to the meeting with his rabbi by accusing the two men of employing “ugly” and “dishonest” political tactics and vowed to remain in the race.

PM invokes families of fallen soldiers

Not to be deterred, Netanyahu shared an open letter on Wednesday from supportive bereaved families of soldiers killed in the October 7, 2023, attack and subsequent war, in which they called on Winter to withdraw from the race.

“These elections are fateful, fateful for the settlement movement, the judicial system and security,” the families wrote. “In these elections, every vote is important.”

“Ofer, you are not polling above the electoral threshold in any survey,” they said. “We, the bereaved families, call on you, Ofer: Do not endanger Israel’s security.”

Sharing the letter on X, Netanyahu echoed the families’ call, writing: “Ofer Winter, listen to the bereaved families — show responsibility and step down for the sake of the right-wing victory!”

Laly Derai, a candidate on Winter’s slate and the mother of fallen IDF soldier Staff Sgt. Saadia Derai, pushed back, stressing that bereaved families do not all share the same views.

“We are not all the same, we do not all think the same way, and therefore speaking on behalf of the bereaved families is something I would not do,” she wrote in response to Netanyahu.

Derai stressed that she respects every family that signed the letter, adding that doing so is “entirely their right” and that they have “earned” that right.

Turning to Netanyahu’s call for a right-wing victory, she added, “After losing my son Saadia, may God avenge his blood, I am here so that there will truly be a victory.”

She called for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza, the integration of ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF and an end to Israel’s internal divisions.

“That’s what I’m here for, and I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

Smotrich offers ministerial post for withdrawal

As the party dug its heels in, Smotrich tried another approach later on Wednesday and offered Winter a ministerial position in the next government on behalf of his party if he agreed to withdraw his candidacy.

In a statement, the far-right finance minister said he was prepared to give up one of the ministerial positions his Religious Zionism party would be allocated in future coalition negotiations if Winter agreed to drop out.

Specifically, he offered Winter a position within the Defense Ministry that would grant him authority over a proposed project to promote the “voluntary” migration of Palestinians from Gaza, as well as an administration to oversee the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF — two of Winter’s core priorities — in exchange for his party’s withdrawal.

Notably, Smotrich can not guarantee such positions would be on the table before the election is held and coalition negotiations are held. Additionally, without any Knesset power, Winter would have little to no political leverage, and would be entirely dependent on Smotrich’s goodwill.

“Ofer, my brother, you are a good man. A principled leader and a brave commander with many achievements to your credit,” Smotrich said. He warned, though, that Winter’s continued candidacy risks repeating the 1992 election, when smaller right-wing parties failed to cross the electoral threshold, making way for Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor government.

“The votes that will be wasted below the electoral threshold will make the difference between victory and defeat in the election,” he said. “The right-wing camp cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Smotrich said he previously offered Winter a place on Religious Zionism’s electoral slate before the lists were finalized, but the offer was rejected.

“I do not expect you to withdraw from public activity,” Smotrich told Winter. “I am now offering you a genuine partnership that will provide you with a realistic platform to contribute within the political system.”

“I will give up a ministerial position allocated to my party for you if you withdraw and do not endanger the right,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Smotrich accused the People of Israel chair of having refused to speak with him for the past six months.

“You’ve been boycotting me for six months now. I’ve become ‘radioactive.’ You refuse to meet, refuse to talk, refuse to consult and think things through together.”

Insisting that he has criticized Winter only for the “irresponsibility” of his independent election bid, Smotrich accused his rival of running a campaign of “mudslinging and smears” against him and Netanyahu, despite professing to champion a more principled kind of politics.