Parties try to end campaign on Right foot
NEW RIGHT
The New Right continued with its final campaign message: that if their party does not get enough votes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a unity government between his Likud Party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White. The goal is to combat Likud’s campaign messaging: that it needs to be the largest party in order for President Reuven Rivlin to task Netanyahu with forming the next government.
“The question of the 2019 election... Defense Minister [Naftali] Bennett or Defense Minister Gantz? Justice Minister [Ayelet] Shaked or Justice Minister [Yair] Lapid? The choice is in your hands,” Bennett tweeted on Monday.
On Sunday night, Bennett warned that “Netanyahu decided to wipe out the New Right in order to form a ‘peacenik’ government with Lapid and Gantz. There is simply no other satisfactory explanation for the tsunami he is waging against us... He knows that there is no one [other than Bennett and Shaked] capable of halting the creation of a Palestinian state.
“Do not fall into the trap,” Bennett warned.
The New Right also sent out messages appealing to English-speaking voters, first from Bennett’s mother Myrna, who made aliyah from San Francisco, and then from candidate Caroline Glick, who talked about having made aliyah from Chicago and her columns in The Jerusalem Post.
ZEHUT
Zehut held a final campaign event in Netanya Monday evening, with its candidates talking about “freedom, [cannabis] legalization [and the] free market.” Before that, the party held a three-hour webcast from party leader Moshe Feiglin’s Facebook page, answering questions from the public, and responding to “rumors and attacks.”
Feiglin also had to do damage control after an interview with Dudu Bauchner, a comedian who has made a series of videos for Ynet. Bauchner and Feiglin massaged each other’s feet and poured alcohol on them. Feiglin slapped Bauchner’s feet, saying he’s the “extreme right” and needs to “take out his aggression.” The video went viral online, with some joking he was high on marijuana, the drug Zehut hopes to legalize. Someone even posted it to the foot fetish section of the pornography website PornHub. Feiglin defended the video, saying it was “in the spirit of Purim,” but posted online weeks later. “When you’re in Rome, act like a Roman and try to enjoy yourself,” Feiglin said in an interview with Channel 12.
URP
Union of Right-Wing Parties (URP) made a last-minute campaign promise, saying they will reduce the supplementary payments parents will have to pay for children in religious-Zionist schools.
URP leader Rafi Peretz said that, “everyone knows to say that we have free and compulsory education, but in practicality, parent payments have become unreasonable. As a father of 12 children, I know what it entails. The time has come for real equality between Israeli students.”
And a leaked recording of URP candidate MK Bezalel Smotrich indicated that Peretz will have the power to keep that promise. In comments from a closed parlor meeting played on Channel 12, Smotrich confirmed what had been previously reported: “We made clear agreements with Netanyahu to receive two senior portfolios... It was very clear we’ll keep the Education and Justice ministries... they’re not [Education Minister] Naftali Bennett’s personal portfolios.”
As for Netanyahu’s denial of that promise and his repeated commitment to the Likud keeping the education portfolio for itself, Smotrich said: “Everyone has their campaign considerations, it’s OK.”
Likud’s spokesman continued to deny that such an agreement exists.
Meanwhile, Itamar Ben-Gvir of Otzma Yehudit, which is in a “technical bloc” with the other parties in URP and running a separate campaign, released a video calling for voters to make sure they get seven seats so he becomes an MK. The cartoon shows Ben-Gvir on a rising platform that stops at just below seven, and Supreme Court justices and MK Ahmed Tibi rejoicing. Then, someone votes URP, the platform passes seven, and Ben-Gvir pounces on them.
Ben-Gvir also sent a letter to the “hilltop youth” and their families, reminding them that he defended them in court and promising to continue to fight for them in the Knesset if they vote for him – even though the hilltop youth tend to not vote at all.