Concerned by Bayit Yehudi's rising popularity, the Likud base appears to have made a blunder in its ongoing attacks on the party's chairman, Naftali Bennett. Likud denies involvement in the campaign.
Likud's "grassroots" base began running an advertising campaign in the Likudnik website Tuesday that used Holocaust imagery including barbed wire and a yellow Jewish star to convince voters that Bennett's party was like a ghetto for religious voters.
The caption on the ads is "The Jewish Ghetto, headed by Naftali Bennett," and the logo features a yellow star like the one Nazis forced Jews to wear on their clothes.
The text says: "60 years! It took the knit kippot 60 years to break out of the sectoral ghetto that the Mafdal (National Religious Party) had put them in. 60 years until we finally succeeded in assimilating into the general Jewish public and freeing ourselves from the isolated ghetto that past leaders had locked us into. And now Naftali Bennett wants to put us back in the old Mafdal, "The party of the religious people."
"Sorry, Naftali, but we would rather be a part of the Israeli public and not separate ourselves from it. Knitted kippot change things from within."
"My Likud brothers what's going on with you?" Bennett asked rhetorically in a short Facebook response. "I am speechless."
Likud Beytenu denounced the advertisement Tuesday and called upon Bennett "to file a complaint for incitement with the police, so that the identity of the people behind the advertisement can be ascertained."
"Likud has no connection to the Likudnik website and everything that is published there is their sole responsibility," the party said.
Recent Likud attacks on Bennett have only made him more popular, according to polls.