Netanyahu in dire straits: New right-wing party threatens to sink Minister Smotrich & his entire coalition

After several new center-right parties failed to make an impact in recent weeks, the launch of retired general Ofer Winter’s new "People of Israel" party and the long-awaited unification of Arab parties have shaken up the election landscape over the past week.

These developments appear to primarily benefit the opposition bloc, further weakening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of winning re-election.

Under Israel’s electoral system, parties must receive at least 3.25% of the vote to enter the Knesset, an amount equivalent to four mandates in the 120-seat parliament. Votes cast for parties that fail to clear the threshold “go to waste” and are not counted in the allocation of seats.

Now, Netanyahu, Likud chairman, is desperately trying to force unifications within the right-wing bloc to prevent thousands of votes from going to waste, but is encountering stubborn resistance from Jewish Power party's Itamar Ben Gvir, who has categorically ruled out uniting with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party again.

This week’s big election story is the new "People of Israel" party (Amcha Israel), launched by retired IDF Brig.-Gen. Ofer Winter and Yoseph Haddad on Tuesday. The party, which was projected to easily cross the threshold in almost all polls, received a high of 8 mandates in an i24 News poll but 4-6 in most others.

This meteoric rise appears to come primarily at the expense of Smotrich, who is now in danger of narrowly missing the threshold and “burning” his votes. According to the most recent Lazar/Maariv poll published Thursday, Winter's party would comfortably cross the threshold with five mandates.

This scenario would waste an enormous number of right-wing votes, as well as some votes for potential centrist coalition partners, with Smotrich’s party at 3%, Tropper and Hendel’s Zionist Home at 2%, and several additional percentage points going to Gilad Erdan’s "Unity" party, Yaron Zelekha's "Economic" party, which has risen in recent polls, Benny Gantz’s "Blue and White" party, and others.

Taken together, all the right and center splinter parties could burn as much as 8% of the vote, equivalent to about 10 seats.

Even worse for Netanyahu, the supposedly “obvious” move of repeating last election’s technical alliance between Ben Gvir and Smotrich, thereby rescuing Smotrich’s votes, appears to have failed.

“I am inviting Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Minister Bezalel Smotrich to meetings on Sunday. We must not waste a single vote; we must unite in order to save the right-wing bloc,” Netanyahu wrote publicly on Friday in an apparent effort to pressure Ben Gvir into meeting.

However, Jewish Power quickly responded, vowing that it and Religious Zionism would “not run together … This decision is final and absolute and will not change under any circumstances. Accordingly, there will be no negotiations, meetings, or talks on the matter, neither directly nor indirectly.”

This is essentially a battle over who has to pay the price in Knesset seats to rescue Smotrich and, potentially, the right-wing government.

Jewish Power instead called on Netanyahu “to advance the two correct and realistic alternatives on the table – either a unification of all the fragments of the small parties, or the use for Smotrich of the reserved slots that the Prime Minister received in Likud.”

Netanyahu is reportedly saving his reserved slots either to assign them to popular figures from outside the party to boost Likud’s own performance, or to offer them to popular leaders from splinter parties, such as Dedi Simhi, who is currently allied with Gantz.

But Netanyahu's problems don't stop there. According to the same Maariv poll, the newly united Arab party comprising "Hadash," "Ta’al" and "Balad," would increase to 8 seats, in addition to Ra’am’s 5.

With the opposition bloc receiving 59 mandates overall, the Arab parties would once again become the kingmaker for a potential “change government.”

On Thursday, Winter said he intends to remain with the Netanyahu-led bloc, after right-wing activists accused him of considering recommending Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman, whom he previously served as military secretary, as a compromise candidate for prime minister after the election.

“People ask me – are you with Bibi or not with Bibi? Friends, We do not work for any individual, only for the people of Israel. We are in the right-wing camp. The leader of the right-wing camp is Netanyahu, and he alone is the one we will recommend,” Winter said.

The general has revealed a slate of several well-known figures, with Haddad – an Arab-Israeli activist – as his No. 2, along with former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum; Sigal Kroanik, the bereaved widow of Arik, Kibbutz Be'eri's local security coordinator who was killed on Oct. 7; Lali Deri, the mother of a fallen IDF soldier; Aviv Ezra, founder of the Generation of Victory movement, among others.

Referencing the party name, Winter emphasized, “We don't care about the [political] position. We care about the people,” to highlight the diverse background of his candidates as religious and secular Israelis, residents of cities and outlying border communities, Jews and Arabs, who are united by the common thread of military service.

He has positioned "People of Israel" as a hawkish right-wing party, saying on Thursday, “Haredim will be integrated into the IDF, with the Haredi activists or without them."

"There will be voluntary emigration from Gaza, and there will not merely be an administration for emigration from Gaza. There will be a decisive victory, not containment. There will be genuine advocacy for the State of Israel, and not merely a Ministry of Advocacy.”