🙏 TENS OF THOUSANDS AT WESTERN WALL SELICHOT: Tens of thousands gathered at the Western Wall Thursday night for Selichot prayers.
🗳️ RIGHT-WING ELECTION FIGHT INTENSIFIES: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I invite Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister Bezalel Smotrich to meetings on Sunday. We must not waste a single vote; we must unite to save the right-wing bloc!”
Otzma Yehudit responded that it and the Religious Zionist Party will not run together in the upcoming Knesset elections. The party called the decision final and absolute and said there would be no contacts, meetings or discussions on a joint run, directly or indirectly.
Otzma Yehudit instead urged Netanyahu to advance what it called two appropriate and realistic alternatives currently on the table: unite the smaller fragmented parties, or use reserved positions Netanyahu received on the Likud candidate list for Smotrich, with the goal of preventing right-wing votes from being lost.
Amit Segal: “2022 — Netanyahu refuses to be photographed with Ben-Gvir. 2026 — Ben-Gvir refuses to meet with Netanyahu. If Netanyahu doesn’t understand that he has a serious problem within his bloc, he’s not seeing reality.”
Separately, Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin are reportedly in advanced talks over a technical bloc between Religious Zionism and Feiglin’s Zehut party. The talks were already underway before Netanyahu’s effort to unite Smotrich with Ben-Gvir failed.
Feiglin is expected to receive the realistic No. 2 position on the slate, along with the 8th and 10th spots, although the arrangement has not yet been finalized.
Zehut, led by Feiglin, ran once, in 2019. Despite favorable polls, it collapsed at the last moment and failed to cross the electoral threshold, receiving about 3% of the vote. Current polls give Zehut around 1%, which according to the report effectively supports reserving a realistic position for Feiglin in a joint slate.
The aim is to ensure the slate clears the electoral threshold following Ofer Winter’s entry into the race, which has weakened Religious Zionism and left it below the threshold in most polls.
Netanyahu is reportedly not privy to the details of the negotiations but has heard about them and supports the idea in principle. Smotrich and Feiglin declined to comment on specifics but confirmed that negotiations over possible alliances are taking place.
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