Netanyahu ‘setting the field on fire’ in final stretch to beat predictions Lapid declares war on parties in bloc

The Likud campaign is confident the party will do far better than the 28-29 seats it has been getting in recent polls, pointing at large numbers of undecided voters for other parties, a senior campaign official said Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working on targeting potential Likud voters by “setting the field on fire.”

After not doing in-person events for much of the campaign due to lockdowns, Netanyahu is now taking part in at least four rallies per day, the campaign official said.

In addition, Netanyahu has been attending “green-passport events,” going where he can highlight the reopening of businesses after pandemic restrictions were lifted and to emphasize his role in getting large numbers of Israelis vaccinated against COVID-19.

“We’re focusing heavily on the economy,” the source said. “Just like he was obsessed with the vaccine, he’s now obsessed with the economy.”

Israeli pollsters call voters

Yesh Atid changed its political strategy for the March 23 election on Sunday and began a campaign to woo supporters from its satellite parties in the Center-Left camp and the bloc aiming to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Until now, Yair Lapid’s party was careful not to attack the smaller parties in the Center and Left out of concern that they would fall below the electoral threshold.

But on Sunday afternoon, the party sent out text messages that warned against wasting votes on Blue and White, Labor and Meretz without mentioning them by name.

“Netanyahu failed, because he cared only

with low certainty in their choice “brittle,” and the Likud campaign is optimistic that they will end up with many of the other parties’ “brittle” votes. Netanyahu referred to the large number of uncertain votes among rival parties on the Right in an interview on Saturday night.

According to the Likud’s internal polling, more than 80% of those planning to vote Likud are certain about their vote. The average for all parties is 72%.

Only 29.5% of New Hope voters are certain, continuing a drastic week-to-week increase in “brittle” votes. Last week, 35% of those who said they would vote for New Hope were confident about their vote.

Uncertain New Hope voters tend to go to Yesh Atid. Yet, Likud views the party’s brittleness as a possible advantage. With numbers like that, the Likud campaign source said, there is a good chance that the party – founded by Gideon Sa’ar, a Likud minister turned Netanyahu rival, who has vowed not to support the prime minister – could “crash bigtime” and drop below the 3.25% electoral threshold.

New Hope countered Likud’s numbers, with a spokesman accusing Netanyahu’s party of “sending violent squads of bullies to our events.”

“Likud would love you to think New Hope doesn’t pose a threat to Netanyahu’s continued rule, because they know very well that the only party that can replace Netanyahu and offer the Israeli people genuine change is Gideon Sa’ar and New Hope,” the spokesman said.

About half (51.3%) of Yamina voters were certain they would vote for the party led by Naftali Bennett, Likud polling found. The brittle Yamina voters would alternatively vote for Likud or the Religious Zionist Party, which is in the bloc supporting Netanyahu.

A Yamina source countered that their polling shows the party has 10 solid seats, which is three or four more than Likud’s polling, plus another three that could go to other parties. The source also said the party is the second choice for a plurality of Likud, New Hope and Religious Zionist Party voters, which gives Yamina potential for growth. Yamina’s polls confirm Likud’s assessment that New Hope’s votes are 70% brittle.

Yamina has not committed to supporting Netanyahu or someone else for prime minister, and sources in the party have said Bennett would demand a rotation

for the premiership.

“There won’t be a rotation with me,” Netanyahu said at a conference of the religious-Zionist publishing group Besheva on Sunday. “There will be one head. Gideon [Sa’ar] and [Naftali] Bennett cannot form a government without [Yesh Atid leader Yair] Lapid as prime minister.”

“Bennett says he wants to be prime minister,” he said. “How? Only in a rotation with Lapid... Lapid is praying that you will vote for Bennett.”

Bennett has said Yamina will not be in a government with Lapid at the helm.

Netanyahu said Bennett “will have an appropriate and respectable place in our government, but there won’t be a rotation with him.” •

With “friends” like Nitzan Horowitz, who needs enemies?

In “Nitzan Horowitz, why encourage ICC’s targeting of Israel?” (March 10), Gil Troy rightfully castigated the head of the Meretz Party, but nowhere near enough.

Horowitz’s incomprehensible support of the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate our soldiers for alleged “war crimes” is nothing short of treason. Every soldier in our army should be warned, never to turn their back on Horowitz and his ilk, for fear of receiving a knife between his shoulder blades – because that is what he has done to each and every one of us.

I wonder how the Supreme Court would decide on a petition to disqualify him from serving in the Knesset – after all, they saw fit to disqualify Michael Ben Ari, Baruch Mersel and Benzie Gopstein for much less than that – but, then again, they saw nothing wrong in the declarations of Ibtisam Mara’ana (number 7 on the Labor list). But of course, no disqualification would result, as Horowitz is on the “acceptable” side of the political map.

Troy describes Horowitz’s actions of “consecrating a single-sex marriage on the steps of the Chief Rabbinate” as being a praiseworthy “demonstration of his multiple identities which shape and motivate him.” That is not how I would describe it. The shameless flaunting of social perversion, of sexual deviation, of unnatural (yes, unnatural) personal abominations (not my words, but those of the Book of Books) finds a ready ear and even more ready pen in the world of our popular politically correct journalism.

Is it not enough that this man attempts to destroy the defensive fighting spirit of our defense forces, that he must also soil his mouth and body in destroying the very basic framework of our Jewish, family-based (mother, father, child) society?

We must not only open our eyes to what is happening, but we must speak out, bravely – unfearful of the obfuscations of political correctness.

LAURENCE BECKER Jerusalem

Gil Troy’s article helped me.

I was once a Mertez voter, until I moved over to supporting the now-defunct centrist Shinui Party and subsequently Yesh Atid.

If I ever considered moving back to supporting Meretz, Troy’s essay helped me decide: never again. I’ve no more doubts.

JONATHAN DANILOWITZ Shoresh

Security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon on Sunday and at least three people were killed as protests against the military’s seizure of power continued for a sixth week, witnesses and domestic media said.

Video showed protesters holding handmade shields and wearing helmets as they confronted security forces in the Hlaingthaya district of the city. Plumes of black smoke rose over the area.

Chinese state-owned broadcaster CGTN said two Chinese-funded clothes factories in the district were set ablaze by people who arrived on motorcycles, armed with iron rods, axes and gasoline.

More than 80 people had been killed and over 2,100 arrested as of Saturday in widespread protests against the military coup on February 1, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group said.

Mahn Win Khaing Than, the acting leader of Myanmar’s parallel civilian government, addressed the public via Facebook on Saturday, saying, “This is the darkest moment of the nation and the moment that the dawn is close.”

The Irrawaddy media group said three people were killed when police opened fire on protesters in Yangon on Sunday. Myanmar Now said 15 people were also injured.

At least two people were killed elsewhere in the Southeast Asian nation, a day after Mahn Win Khaing Than, who is on the run along with most senior officials from the ruling National League for Democracy Party, said the civilian government would seek to give people the legal right to defend themselves.

A young man was shot and killed in the town of Bago, near Yangon, witnesses and domestic media said. The Kachin Wave media outlet said another protester was killed in the town of Hpakant, in the jade mining area in the northeast. The Monywa township in central Myanmar declared it had formed its own local government and police force.

In Yangon, hundreds of people demonstrated in different parts of the city after putting up barricades of barbed wire and sandbags to block security forces.

In one area, people staged a sit-in protest under sheets of tarpaulin rigged up to protect them from the harsh midday sun. “We need justice,” they chanted.

At least 13 people were killed on Saturday, one of the bloodiest days since the coup, witnesses and domestic media said.

“They are acting like they are in a war zone, with unarmed people,” said Myat Thu, an activist in the city of Mandalay.

A spokesman for the junta did not answer phone calls from Reuters seeking comment. Junta-run media MRTV’s evening news broadcast on Saturday labeled the protesters “criminals” but did not elaborate. (Reuters)