Bennett and Shaked
Bennett and ShakedMiriam Alster/Flash 90

Strategist Yehoshua Mor-Yosef predicted on Sunday that HaYamin HeHadash, the new right-wing party of ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, will not succeed in crossing the six-seat threshold in the election this coming April.

"I do not see Bennett and Shaked achieving 10 seats, that's a lot of votes. Let's say that they will succeed in reaching five or six Knesset seats. That would be a very nice achievement,” he told Arutz Sheva in an interview.

Bennett and Shaked’s split from the Jewish Home, opined Mor-Yosef, is for long-term purposes.

"This is all about preparations for the day after Binyamin Netanyahu, when there will be a reshuffle and they will have to run together as one unit for the leadership of the Likud or try to draw votes from the Likud that will go to them after Netanyahu exits, and then they will either take control of the Likud from the outside or they will dismantle the Likud after the Netanyahu era," he said.

"Naftali Bennett understands politics and knows how to play the game. He brought great achievements to religious Zionism, so I think this move really gives him a chance to leap forward," added Mor-Yosef, who expressed hopes that the right will not be harmed in the upcoming election as a result of Bennett and Shaked’s move.

“The move by Naftali and Ayelet is mainly designed to realize the popularity of Ayelet Shaked but also that of Naftali Bennett, which is larger than the Jewish Home brand, and to translate it into Knesset seats. The big question is whether they will succeed in increasing the seats of the nationalist camp or will they play in the same pool and simply pass seats from side to side. If that is the case, at best they have not changed anything, and perhaps, heaven forbid, it can go to places of losing votes because of the high electoral threshold."

The biggest winner of this move, opined Mor-Yosef, is Minister Uri Ariel. "Minister Ariel is in a difficult battle over the leadership of Tekuma. Now it is clear that it is less important is who will head Tekuma; what is important is who will head the union between the National Union and the Jewish Home because it is clear that they cannot run separately."

"If Bezalel Smotrich heads the united list, it will have a very sharp color and this will reduce its capabilities because he is perceived as more extreme than Uri Ariel. He is also the most experienced among the entire group that is in the Jewish home today," said Mor-Yosef.

Therefore, he continued, "they will do the right thing if they choose Uri Ariel to head the joint list of the Jewish Home and the National Union. This will succeed in bringing the votes of all the knitted skullcaps.”