Shaked and Bennett campaign for New Right
Shaked and Bennett campaign for New RightFlash 90

Former MK and publicist Elyakim Haetzni, who supported the New Right party, expressed his regret that Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked will remain outside the 21st Knesset.

"The idea behind the establishment of the New Right was the right thought: to create a right-wing alternative which doesn't necessarily 'wear a kippah,'" Haetzni told Yisrael Hayom on Friday.

"Likud's policy is unsatisfactory to me. We wasted two years of [US President Donald] Trump's term - a golden opportunity we won't get back. Bennett and Shaked had resolutions. I don't know any other ministers who achieved such real and measurable results as they did."

Haetzni explains why in his opinion the New Right didn't succeed. "The idea was good but the actualization was less good. The videos were too sophisticated. The campaign tried too hard to convey that they weren't only about the settlements and a Palestinian state but it was impossible to avoid that," Haetzni said. "If that's not what distinguishes them, nothing distinguishes them. You can't avoid the elephant in the middle of the room."

"We'll feel their absence especially if [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu adopts the Trump peace plan, which some say is his own plan, and there isn't enough power on the right to stop him. That power has to come from the Likud now. There are good people there, but I don't know if they will have the courage."

As for the United Right, which received 5 seats, Haetzni said that "that's Netanyahu's good luck. The main issue in the elections was Netanyahu's criminal cases and any other issue was irrelevant. Netanyahu maneuvered there. The persecution and the fierce hate the left expressed about him aroused a natural counter-reaction."