The second rounds a week ago marked the real start of the fifth election. Amid the multitude of dances, one stage in Kfar Chabad became the opening shot of the battle – perhaps the real one of this election. Opposition leader Netanyahu was invited to greet the crowd, but the number two in the religious Zionist party, Itamar Ben Gabir, was already on stage.
Netanyahu, who did not want to drive away those soft right-wing voters, did everything to avoid having his picture taken next to Ben Gabir, even at the cost of taking him off the stage before he, Netanyahu, went up. Netanyahu, who has been accused of preferring Gantz instead of Ben Gabir, ran to clarify: “Ganz is not right-wing. I am going to establish a right-wing government and I am not going to give up any of the religious Zionists to get some article in the time newspaper. It is not me.”
This was not the only time in this shortened election week that Netanyahu was dragged by the religious Zionist party. Just after the holiday, Smotrich presented the legal reform he will demand, a condition for his entry into the next government: a majority for politicians in the committee for selecting judges, and the repeal of the fraud and breach of trust clause. Along with the presentation of the program, he clarified: “We will make sure that this will not affect Netanyahu’s trial.”
Lapid, Gantz and Saar attacked: Netanyahu’s big plan is to cancel the section in the law that will ultimately lead to the end of his trial. Netanyahu, for his part, responded at a ceremony of the Association of Manufacturers this week: “I often encounter friends who want to help me more than I need, and this is an example of that. I do not intend to cancel anything, and I do not intend to retroactively apply anything.”
Religious Zionism was so dominant this week that even Gantz, the defense minister, found himself in a battle with Bezalel Smotrich for the role of the defense portfolio. In an interview with Aryeh Golan on this morning’s program, Gantz laughed when asked about Smotrich’s desire to receive the case.
And when Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are dragging Netanyahu and even Gantz into confrontations, what wonder that in a news survey published this week, religious Zionism transferred a mandate from the Likud to it, and is on 14 mandates – the most it has ever had. Netanyahu is used to being at the end of this election campaign who drinks the mandates – and not the one who drinks to him. This time he was forced to see how religious Zionism drank the mandates from him through a straw.