N.Y Time: April 25, 2024 10:02 am

Netanyahu to settlers: right-wing victory not a sure thing

Netanyahu to settlers: right-wing victory not a sure thing

“Bring people to the polls to vote so we can win,” Netanyahu said. “Do this with all your might.”
The media has predicted that victory “is a sure thing” for the Likud and that “we have won” in an attempt to lull voters into apathy, Netanyahu said.
“Don’t stay at home as if it [voting] doesn’t matter,” Netanyahu said, adding that, “it does matter.”
Polls have predicted that Netanyahu’s Likud Party will garner the most votes on Tuesday, easily beating out all of his rivals, with Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party expected to come in second.
Only the top two vote-getters are given an immediate chance to form a government. Only after they both fail is there a small window for another candidate to attempt to muster the necessary 61-member coalition.
At issue for Netanyahu in this election, as in all the others where he has come in first, is the ability to form a coalition. Netanyahu in the final days has hammered home the message that a large Likud would make a right-wing government under his leadership more feasible.
In the past days, he has spoken of a necessary two additional mandates to ensue such a coalition. Among the places he has searched for votes is the settlements, not only to shore up his support but to pilfer support from other parties.
REVAVA IN the last election was a stronghold of one of Netanyahu’s right-wing rivals, Yamina party head Naftali Bennett, who garnered support in the last election from 73% of the voters there. The Likud in contrast received only 18% of the vote.
Netanyahu told the audience in Revava, located in the Samaria Region of the West Bank, that in reality there are some 70 mandates for right-wing parties, but there is an attempt to ensure that the power of the Right is divided up into small parties, some of which would attempt to form a coalition with Lapid, Netanyahu said.
He blamed the problems of the last government on the fact that he had lacked the necessary 61 votes for a right-wing government and as such had created a rotation arrangement with Alternative Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu used as an example his attempt to have the government declare its intention to legalize the West Bank settler outposts in December and January, which was thwarted by Gantz.
There was support for legalization, but there was a “rotation” – and as a result, there were objections, Netanyahu said.
But with a strong right-wing government, it will be possible to legalize the outpost and strengthen the settlements, Netanyahu said.