Is this the man who might save Netanyahu? The name stirring up the Right | Mati Tuchfeld

The election campaign has only just begun, but the picture emerging in the headquarters of all parties is identical: while the public has shifted to the right after the war, the coalition bloc, representing the right-wing parties, is weakening. This dissonance keeps Benjamin Netanyahu and the other leaders of the right-wing parties awake at night, and serves as fertile ground for the hopes of everyone else. This picture presents a clear reality in which there are between 15 and 25 mandates of right-wing voters of all kinds who, at this stage, are not willing to vote for any of the three right-wing parties in the coalition: Likud, Religious Zionism, and Otzma Yehudit.

The prevailing assessment is that if the situation remains static and only the existing parties remain until the finish line, these votes will be divided. It is not yet clear how. Some will return to the original parties of the right-wing bloc. Others will migrate to the 'chameleon' parties on the other side. This reality leads to the fact that, as of today, the polls published in the media have almost no value. Too many people with too many doubts. This does not provide a stable picture, but rather chaos and disinformation.

The shift of the Israeli public to the right following the events of the massacre and the war has manifested in three main planes: tradition and Judaism; a rigid security concept and zero tolerance for the Arab enemy; sympathy for the settlement movement in Judea and Samaria and the rejection of ceding territories for agreements. If there were 68 mandates in the current Knesset that believed in these values even before October 7, then today, according to estimates, there should have been over 70, perhaps even 75 mandates that moved to this side. In the polls, as mentioned, the trend is the opposite. In the most favorable poll, conducted by Momo Filber on Channel 14, these parties receive 62 mandates. For others, much less than that.

In recent weeks, all parties from all camps have sent their poll consultants to analyze this gap. Who are these right-wingers, old and new, who are currently stubbornly refusing to express support for the current government parties? What deters them, and how can they be attracted? The findings are not very surprising but are unequivocal: the composition of the Likud list and the alliance with the ultra-Orthodox. Also on the margins: anger at the government during whose tenure the October 7 disaster occurred, the failure to address the cost of living, disappointment with the failure of the judicial reform, and more.

A direct and clear line connects these findings, which, as mentioned, everyone sees and observes every week in deep polls, with the parties' campaign and their main messages in recent weeks. In the opposition — a firm and combative line, trying to flank the government from the right and demand victory and decisive action. As well as attacking the government over the connection with the ultra-Orthodox and promises of mass conscription of ultra-Orthodox into the IDF. With this, the parties of Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, and Benny Gantz are trying to provide an answer to at least two of the three values important to right-wing voters.

However, regarding the third value — Jewish tradition, which also entails the desire to change the judicial system, that is, for it to also change its character to be more Jewish and traditional — these parties have remained without a real answer, if any. Here and there, Lieberman throws in a sentence about his wife being religious and that he has a religious-Zionist headquarters in the party, and Eisenkot tries to strengthen the Moroccan element, but at least for now, this is a weak and not very credible answer. Their hope is that the other two things will be strong enough to bridge the gap among right-wing voters who will be drawn to them despite the glaring lack.

But what is good for a campaign is not necessarily good for reality. Despite the supportive media envelope and the attempt to hide and blur evidence, each of them — Eisenkot, Bennett, Yair Lapid, and Lieberman — fell into hard leftism in real time. Despite the new image he tries to promote for himself, Eisenkot was and remains a man of surrender and agreements. A devout supporter of the two-state solution. One of the fathers of the concept of reducing the IDF and avoiding friction and striving for contact, both in his years as a senior military man and thereafter.

Today, Eisenkot demands the IDF remain in the Gaza Strip until the dismantling of Hamas is ensured, but in real time and even after — in the days when he did not think the Right would be a target audience for him — he boasted that he was the first to push for withdrawal, ending the war, and leaving Hamas rule in Gaza. He even resigned from the government after Netanyahu refused to carry out the hostage deal, which included a full withdrawal to the line of the settlements, just like before October 7, when half of Gaza, including Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor, had not yet been conquered at all, and Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif ruled the Strip with an iron fist.

Also Lieberman, considered the most right-wing of the bunch, promoted for years, even while sitting in right-wing governments, his plan to cede territories for the establishment of an Arab state on the lands of Eretz Yisrael. In his famous plan, not only were vast parts of Judea and Samaria to be ceded to the Arabs, but even Umm al-Fahm and the Wadi Ara localities. Bennett still tried at the beginning of the way to present himself as a right-winger, and he has some achievements in this field, but the joining with Lapid destroyed any chance of attracting a right-wing voter, and by doing so he actually did the work for everyone else, who no longer had to convince anyone that he is not right-wing, which freed up their resources to deal with others.

Not only past statements stand in the way of the group of 'impostors', but also their plans for the future. Mainly the expected joining with Yair Golan's Democrats and Mansour Abbas's Ra'am party. Lieberman, for example, expressed his great frustration during an interview this week in which he said that the bloc can win, but only on the condition that Yair Golan remains silent. He did not attack the chairman of the Democrats and did not clarify that he would never sit with him because of his policy, but only begged him to stop disturbing him and his friends to complete the disguise. To stop constantly tearing it off their faces and allow them to continue the work of deception without interfering.

Will Winter save? The planned joining of Yoav Segalovitz to Ra'am brought back to the forefront also the pre-known possibility of the extremist Islamic party joining a left-wing government. For the day after, it is a brilliant move. What will whitewash Abbas and the Shura Council better than a Jew, a Zionist, a former senior police officer, who will serve on its behalf as a minister? But for the time of the campaign, it is nothing less than destructive. After all the denials regarding the intention to rely on an Arab party in the next government, this is a practical step of preparing the ground, which cannot be interpreted otherwise than as a clear intention to commit another violation of the promise.

In recent days, the right-wing parties in the coalition are targeting the exact same audience, but their answer is also far from perfect. Although regarding tradition, Eretz Yisrael, and security they have something to offer, but the glue with the ultra-Orthodox will be very difficult for them to untie. Itamar Ben Gvir, by the way, does not have this problem, his party actually enjoys ultra-Orthodox support, and his supporters are mostly pro-ultra-Orthodox and the conscription campaign does not speak to them. But Likud and Religious Zionism are in a serious problem in this area.

It is not for nothing that the Prime Minister is working to try to dispel the impression that the ultra-Orthodox factions are flesh and blood of the next coalition under his leadership, among other things through the firm message he conveyed this week, according to which in the next government everyone who does not study in a yeshiva will be arrested, according to the law he intends to promote. It is not certain how many of the ultra-Orthodox opponents on the Right will buy this message, and it is likely that not many will be convinced that Netanyahu will succeed in conscripting ultra-Orthodox when his government depends on Shas and United Torah Judaism.

Within all these, a third possibility has emerged. That the solution to the complication is not found in any of the existing parties, but in a new party, which must necessarily be composed of right-wingers, which will provide an answer to all the hesitant right-wingers, in all areas, including ultra-Orthodox conscription, and whose people were outside the system on October 7. Netanyahu would like such a party, but fears the high electoral threshold. On one hand, it has high potential to absorb the lost votes from the Right, and on the other hand, it could waste several mandates. Just like what happened to Meretz in the last elections. Or to Naftali Bennett in the 2019 elections (first round).

Beyond passing the electoral threshold, the Prime Minister also cares about the commitment to the bloc of that potential party. That its members will be such that see in the right-wing government under his leadership a value and will not go head-first, like to a hopeless confrontation or refusal to unite even at the cost of losing votes.

Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein, for example, are not there at all. It is likely that during the campaign they will refuse to conduct any dialogue with him and his people regarding retirement, unification, or any move that will reach the conclusion that it will serve the right-wing bloc. Even after the elections, if they pass the electoral threshold, the two can create difficulties in forming the government, demand to add other parties from the left-wing bloc, remove the ultra-Orthodox, and perhaps even more than that. They are indeed right-wingers, but their motives are personal. Against him. Otherwise, they would have run in Likud.

An exception in the landscape is Ofer Winter. A distinct right-winger. A man of security and Eretz Yisrael. Faithful to tradition to the point of being marked and labeled as an enemy of the people, when he dared to insert words of prayer in the combat order to Givati soldiers during Operation Protective Edge. Winter did not demand to withdraw from Gaza in exchange for a hostage deal like Eisenkot, Bennett, and Lieberman, and in addition to all these, is an enthusiastic supporter of conscripting ultra-Orthodox into the IDF.

Unlike the 'impostors' of the opposition, who attack the government but protect each other, Winter has no problem doing both. This week he went at 120 km/h against the Minister of Defense for his words on the program 'The Patriots', where he announced live on air about Dado Bar Khalifa as the replacement for the commander of the Central Command Avi Bluth. Not that he surrendered to the false campaign that there was a dismissal on air, but in his opinion, even an announcement about a replacement is inappropriate.

The event reminded him of the past. Only a few years ago he was in the exact same situation, when Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi stood on his hind legs to prevent him from serving as the military secretary to the Prime Minister. For a year, Netanyahu tried to fight the Chief of Staff's opposition, but in the end was forced to give up and appoint Roman Gofman in his place. Not a week had passed since Halevi, together with Yoav Gallant, managed to torpedo the appointment, when a headline in the newspaper announced his retirement from the IDF. Not only the Minister of Defense, but also the Prime Minister was attacked by Winter this week over the emerging arrangement in Gaza.

But one should not be mistaken about Winter. He has nothing to do with the opposition people, not with Eisenkot and not with Bennett and Lieberman, for whom he served as military secretary when they were Ministers of Defense. Winter does not want them with a hand on the steering wheel of leadership and does not trust a single word of theirs. This week he sharply attacked Eisenkot and called him a leftist. About Lieberman he said: 'He is a right-winger, but proved that he will be willing to do everything to prevent a right-wing government, including sitting with Ra'am and the Shura Council, just to throw Netanyahu and the right-wing government out of power. The Yisrael Beiteinu campaign talks about decisive action, but it is not clear how — with Yair Golan who opposes pioneers on farms and believes that security passes through the two-state plan? Lieberman needs to explain how he intends to defeat Hamas and the Arab enemy, ensure the settlement movement in Judea and Samaria, and fulfill everything he promises, when he gives the political Left more than one hand on the steering wheel of power'.

Wants and will. Between political and security consultations and dozens of fateful decisions that were placed before him in the last week, including two cabinet meetings and incessant talks with the Americans and the Peace Council in Gaza, Netanyahu is increasingly immersing his hand and head in what is happening inside Likud, which began to stir and boil as the picture of the primaries becomes clearer.

Netanyahu understands that beyond the issue of conscription and the connection with the ultra-Orthodox, the composition of the Likud list also has enormous meaning. That unlike the group of delusional extremists of the Democrats, which includes a lawyer who represents terrorists and raises money for the Arabs of the hostile Palestinian town of Huwara, he will not have even one day of grace after presenting the list, and that the media will do everything to make it repulsive and point out its shortcomings.

Therefore he demanded, and received, eight 'armorings'. An enormous and unprecedented number that will give him room for maneuver for corrections if necessary. Therefore, upon his return from the USA, he began to enter with all his might into the matters of procedures, petitions, the district clause that was approved by a narrow majority, and he will not let go until he achieves everything he wants. Meanwhile, the two clauses he wanted — he received. Armorings and the primaries regulations. But not only them.

During the contacts to bring those clauses to the approval of the party conference, he managed to dismantle what could have been the strongest deal in Likud in the upcoming internal elections — David Bitan and Haim Katz. From joint negotiations with both, the Prime Minister chose to work only with Katz and leave Bitan out of the picture. Bitan was furious and raged, but in the end lost. In the district clause, indeed only by five votes, but in the two clauses that were really important to him, Netanyahu defeated him by an enormous majority.

The vote and the appeal on the clause of voting for MKs in the districts escalated the rivalry inside Likud, and Bitan was forced to mark not only Netanyahu as a rival, but also Katz. The divide and conquer succeeded beyond expectations. Within all these, Netanyahu managed to recruit all the senior members of the party to support his proposals at the conference. Even Tali Gottlieb supported his two important proposals and came out against the district proposal that was important in general to Haim Katz.

The Minister of Defense, the Speaker of the Knesset, Yariv Levin, and the rest of the senior ministers issued support videos for the Prime Minister's proposals, which clarified to all the members that in Likud there is one owner. By the way, at least for Israel Katz it already paid off. Some of Netanyahu's associates pressured him to attack the Minister of Defense for what was perceived as the dismissal of General Bluth live on air. In the past, Netanyahu would not have missed an opportunity to show muscle in front of Katz, especially when it comes to defending an IDF general, who excellently implements the government's policy regarding the settlement movement in Judea and Samaria, but this time Netanyahu refused.

After many years in which the winning axis in Likud was in the pocket of the Katzes, Haim and Israel, in the last elections the paths of the two parted, which led, among other things, to the decline of Israel, who was pushed out of the top ten. The recent events brought the two closer, and as it seems, in the upcoming primaries they will work to restore the crown to its former glory. The alliance with Netanyahu, including the decision to send the party's legal advisor Ilan Bombach to fight for the district clause in the district court, strengthened the status of Haim Katz, while the high position serves well politically the status of Israel. Their close joining will lead to the re-establishment of the strong axis in Likud, at least until the next confrontation with Netanyahu, which may bring, again, the divide and conquer method to the forefront.