In the absence of an orderly exit plan from the quarantine and with morbidity figures counting in the thousands, the Prime Minister can not yet harness the victory over the Corona for the campaign.
The dream of being the first leader to announce the end of the crisis has not been shelved.
Netanyahu and Edelstein
Photography:
Liron Moldovan
This is not how Benjamin Netanyahu thought the election campaign, which was supposed to be based largely on Israel's exit from the Corona crisis on the eve of the polls, would be thanks to the vaccination campaign that was supposed to boost the Likud in number of seats and increase its chances of leading the next government.
Meanwhile the morbidity is rising, the death toll is rising, and the end is not in sight.
Netanyahu has exceptional adaptability.
He never allows himself to indulge in a single plan, and the speed with which he recalculates a route often surprises his opponents and associates alike.
With the entanglement of the Corona crisis and the imminent exit from the quarantine that could even exacerbate the picture, this week Netanyahu drew the road map that should bring him to victory.
Subject of course to changes and in accordance with developments.
Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein presented a new vaccine outline this week: 90 percent of those in their 50s are vaccinated.
The event taught that despite the extent of the morbidity and unrelenting variants, Netanyahu did not completely shelve the dream of being the first leader in the world to declare the end of the corona era in his country, even before the election, as part of the victory strategy.
Netanyahu has come to the conclusion that his image as a man of controversy and divisions distances him from a large public, which on the one hand sees him as the most suitable leader but at the same time also recoils from this type of conduct.
The campaign that Netanyahu is running is free of all attacks and slander and deals entirely with his own image as a leader.
The one who brought the vaccines contrary to all the assessments of his rivals, the one who brought peace with four Arab countries.
If the Biden administration begins to outwit difficulties, on the nuclear issue or on the political issue, this matter will also enter the main messages of the Likud, with Netanyahu presented as the only one who can withstand a pressing American administration.
As for the political opponents, Netanyahu decided to completely ignore Gideon Saar so as not to increase him and mark him as an opponent.
After the Likud uploaded a video simulating WhatsApp correspondence glorifying Netanyahu - which led to a response video of a new hope a few hours later - the Likud said that Saar is under pressure and is therefore already making mistakes at this stage.
Forcing yourself into a confrontation just to get attention, we were told, is a strategic mistake Saar will pay for.
Netanyahu estimates that in the moment of truth, Saar will achieve a single-digit figure for seats.
Abbas
also
questioned
Bennett's decision at the moment to ignore.
While the chairman of the right sharpens the tone against the prime minister and calls for his replacement, the Likud maintains a wireless silence. Not only in order not to increase Bennett, as in the case of Saar, but because the chairman of the right is a potential future partner.
Netanyahu will not have a coalition without him in any situation.
The only one who will receive harsh reactions from the Likud is Yair Lapid.
Netanyahu is interested in positioning him as the main opponent in front of him, which may lower the number of seats for Saar and possibly other parties from the center-left bloc that are currently swaying, such as blue and white.
Bnei Gantz's dying party is deep in Netanyahu's plans, which he believes will not go through.
The fear of the Prime Minister is a result of the collapse of Ganz will be too fast and he would prefer to retire before the election. Another party, swinging is that of Zelekha, which may fall under the threshold when he takes with him thousands of votes of the opponents Netanyahu straight into the trash.
Along with all these, "Netanyahu also has plans for the disbanded joint list, when it is still unclear how deep they are. Netanyahu's rapprochement with the Arab population is already showing its signs in the polls. The joint has stood for 10 seats for a long time, far from the 15 seats it has today. Mansour Abbas, in whom Netanyahu had a hand and a foot, may, for the Likud, reap fruit already at the polling station stage, if it does not pass the blocking percentage.
But even if it does, it is still difficult to assess the potential for cooperation between Abbas and Netanyahu.
If the right-wing bloc does not number 61 but 58-59, as in recent polls, will Abbas fire Netanyahu to block a bloc, or will he oppose personal legislation that may be formed against him after he loses the majority in the Knesset?
We will probably only know after the election.
After Bezalel Smutrich's joint running agreement with Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The Prime Minister was so disturbed by the possibility of a split run on the right, that it led him to engage in the subject incessantly. Every spare minute, between the Corona meetings and the busy schedule, he devoted to this union.
Smutrich consistently refused to answer the calls of Netanyahu and his men, so the only direct contact he had left was Jewish House Chairman Hagit Moshe, who received countless calls from him begging for updates and coordinating moves that ultimately led to success.
Ignoring the pressure
of Gideon Saar's victory strategy beginning of the end. If Netanyahu would get 61 seats and Bennett did join his government, the game actually finished. but if Netanyahu will not be 61, the game will not only re-opened, but in terms of storm chances to come out of this round prime minister.
In this case not fight Saar get first the He will not accept the mandate to form the government from the president either, because he will not head the big party anyway or he will not get the most recommendations from Knesset members. Even if Yair Lapid receives the second mandate, after Netanyahu's failure to form a government, Saar will continue to wait patiently. Lapid will demand the mandate from the president, and will probably receive it as well.
Gafni and Litzman // Photo: Marco
In Saar's opinion, at that moment everything reopened. 75 MKs, plus-minus, who are not members of the Likud and the joint list, will have to decide whether to go to another election, or to overthrow Saar - a person who will probably provoke less antagonism than Netanyahu or Lapid.
Saar will target the ultra-Orthodox factions in this case. Of course, Netanyahu, if Lapid accepts the mandate, they will continue to cling to the prime minister and will not give up. But when the mandate goes to storm, and the dilemma is to go with it or further elections, the answer will already be much less decisive. Saar is sure that he will be able to bring in the ultra-Orthodox, add a few more like Bennett, Lapid or Ganz (whoever passes), and complete the upheaval that will get Netanyahu out of Balfour.
Even before that, Saar needs to maintain its status as a party that receives a double-digit number of seats, preferably as close as possible to 20, and as far away as possible from Bennett. Saar headquarters estimate that Bennett will play while he may still overtake Lapid, after the consistent decline he suffered from was halted last week.
Since Saar estimates that his main voting potential, apart from blue and white, is still sitting with Bennett, he is expected to attack the right in the coming days and present it as a full partner for Netanyahu. Bennett's vote, he declares, was received by Netanyahu, in order to remove from the right wing the rest of Netanyahu's opponents who are still parked with him and have not yet joined the more determined anti-Netanyahu party, such as there is a future or new hope. It's rising, and vice versa.
Saar's election headquarters do not regret Netanyahu's disregard campaign, believing that he will achieve the exact opposite goal. According to them, the disregard is so demonstrated that it conveys pressure. The message they are trying to convey in a new hope is that Netanyahu fears most of all and therefore formulates such and such action strategies against him, he stormed in.
A good place in the middle of
Bennett knows that after the decision to run separately, without religious Zionism and Smutrich, the battle he will enter from next week is no less than his life. Bennett finds himself crossing the blocking percentage from the 2019 A round of elections, at the end of which he remains quarreling with the Election Commission and navigates countless lists and ballot papers in an attempt to garner the 1,400 votes missing for the blocking percentage. Despite the noticeable shortage, Bennett feels he is elsewhere Since and believes that his experience, diligence and plans he m Produced on the subject of morbidity and economics, this time will bring the fruits of success at the ballot box. People like to see action done, they say on the right, and in contrast to the storm that is running from studio to studio, the public sees that Bennett is really devoting himself to work plans and the struggle for the things that are most important to Israeli citizens today.
Bennett likes his status as a Libra, when Saar attacks him on the one hand for sitting with Netanyahu, while Netanyahu's associates accuse him of joining the Saar-Lapid bloc after the election. On Wednesday, after Shimina rushed to submit the list of candidates on her behalf to the Election Commission, Netanyahu's people spread that the quick registration was done to deprive Smutrich of the possibility of returning to the right at the last minute and adding elements to the list that would make it difficult for him to join left-wing parties without the Likud. The conclusion, they said, was that Bennett had already decided to go with the left after the election.
On the right they grinned. It was Smutrich who decided to run alone while Bennett did everything to be part of the list, they mentioned. The only reason for the early registration as early as Wednesday, even before the negotiations between Smutrich and Hagit Moshe matured, was much more technical, simply to catch the letter Y. To the right there is no reserved letter so the party had to stand in line and catch the desired letter. Like Lapid Who wanted to snatch Gantz the letters FH, and put Mickey Levy in line four days before the listing opened.
Even before the submission of the lists, two funerals were held this week - each on a different side. The first of the ultra-Orthodox, the second of Arabs. In both cases, the masses publicly violated the closure guidelines. After the first storm the land. Politicians, especially in the center-left, reacted sharply. After the second the crickets creaked and the silence prevailed.
The first funeral hurts Netanyahu. The ultra-Orthodox sit in his government and give their support to him. This fact intensifies the built-in hatred of the ultra-Orthodox in a large part of the left, who make up the majority of those sitting in the studios and holding microphones in the mainstream media. For them, attacking the ultra-Orthodox at funerals is two for one price. The ultra-Orthodox and Netanyahu in one sentence.
The second funeral, as well as the weekly demonstrations in Balfour, or the declarations of Ron Huldai and Avigdor Lieberman, which call for violations of corona laws, indicate that neither the virus nor the disease are bothering them. It's mostly hypocrisy that should bother everyone else.
