A businessman who is particularly close to the leader of the opposition Binyamin Netanyahu turned to former Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi with a tempting offer: come and get armor in the Likud and we will guarantee you a political future as well. Despite the offer, the Foreign Minister and former Chief of Staff decided to refuse the offer. This was reported last night (Friday) in ‘Hadhot 12’.
As I recall, Ashkenazi served as foreign minister during the Netanyahu-Ganz government, from his position as number 2 in the Blue and White party, after the alternate prime minister and defense minister at the time, Benny Gantz. With the dissolution of the government and the departure for the fourth election, after which the Bent-Lapid government was established, Ashkenazi retired from political life.
The proposal, it was reported, came after Likud conducted a survey in which Ashkenazi’s name was mentioned as someone who could be a “vote magnet” for “state-right” voters.
As part of the preparations for the 2018 elections, Netanyahu is trying to strive and decide and finally bring 61 mandates, and in his office they know that the way is to return voters who went in the previous elections to the right of Naftali Bennett and to the new hope of Gideon Sa’ar.
Now, after Ashkenazi’s refusal of the offer, Likud will continue to look for the person who can bring them this type of voters.