The Zionist Spirit party's polls remain poor two months before the elections for the 25th Knesset. However, party chairman Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked remains optimistic.
Her task seems impossible, reviving the former Yamina party and leading it above the electoral threshold to remain in the Knesset and to become a political factor in the political landscape after the November elections.
Despite multiple polls showing her party falling below the electoral threshold, Shaked believes she can muster enough support to clear that hurdle.
In an interview with Haig Huberman in the Metzav Haruach weekly leaflet read by the Religious Zionist sector, Shaked claimed that after the last elections a right-wing government was not formed because of Religious Zionism chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich.
"There is no one in the political system who made more efforts than me to establish a right-wing government. We tried to convince Smotrich in every possible way to agree to the external support of Ra'am. Netanyahu and Bennett prepared a plan together on how to convince Smotrich that the National Assembly would support him from the outside. The last attempt I made was when Lapid held the mandate to form a government. I told Bennett who already wanted to move forward with Lapid: 'I want to make one more attempt with Smotrich, if I successful, we are going to sign with Netanyahu. Do you agree?' Bennett agreed," Shaked said.
"I came to Rabbi Druckman's house with Orit Strook and Nir Orbach, so there are other witnesses to the meeting. I said to Smotrich: 'Bezalel, you claim that you have defectors (from an anti-Bibi group in support of Netanyahu). I claim that you don't, I checked it. But if you are right, and you are sure that there are defectors, let's make an agreement now, verbally, because there are eight eyes here that will be witnesses, that we will sign an agreement to go with Netanyahu. If three days before the deadline it turns out that there are no defectors, we will swear in a government of 59 MKs with the support of Ra'am from the outside.
"Smotrich answered me: 'I'm not ready.' I told him: 'A sign that you don't have defectors! Because if there were, you would have accepted my offer.'" I picked up the phone to three potential defectors, and asked them if they would join the government with Netanyahu. All three told me unequivocally 'no'.
"And then I said to him: If in your eyes Ra'am is such a disaster for the State of Israel, come and join us and we won't need Ra'am. Smotrich refused. I told him: If you don't enter the government, it means that a government with Ra'am is not such a terrible thing . That's why all Smotrich stories are BS.
"Then for a whole year, in order to eliminate us politically, Smotrich ran the most aggressive campaign of hate and hatred in the State of Israel, which included ads of me with blood, and slogans that I was funding terrorism. One day I called Rabbi Druckman and said to him: 'Are you not ashamed to run such ads.' Rabbi Druckman replied to me: 'It is very serious, I will call for them to be taken down', but in practice the ads remained. Smotritz called not to let me and my friends [sic] into the synagogues. Is this Jewish? Is this religious Zionism? I was taught by Uri Orbach and Rabbi Rontzki, of blessed memory, that religious Zionism is a society that brings together, builds bridges, an inclusive society. It does not banish Jews from the synagogue.
When asked about the possibility of running on a joint list with the Jewish Home party, Shaked said, "It is indeed natural, and there are talks with them about it. I also recognize a willingness in Brodny to join us." When asked if she regrets leaving the Jewish Home, Shaked replied, "Yes. I regret that we left the Jewish Home. It was my home."
Shaked appealed to right-wing voters who were disillusioned with the Yamina party. ''Some of them are very, very angry. I understand their anger, and I regret this anger. I want them to look at the important things we did. If they talk to the people who have been working for 20 years in the settlement division, they will explain that what we did with the promotion of the plan to establish 14 settlements in the Negev is a miracle. Because it was stuck for years. No one managed to promote it."