Sharon Gal speaks to young voters in Jerusalem
Sharon Gal speaks to young voters in JerusalemHezki Ezra

Former journalist Sharon Gal, who is running for the Knesset with the Yisrael Beytenu party, reiterated on Tuesday that Yisrael Beytenu will not be part of a left-wing government.

"We’ve said clearly that we will not sit in a leftist government because we do not believe in the left’s way, we are a rightist party,” he said, speaking to young voters at a pub in the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.

“It is obvious that Meretz is a natural partner of the Labor party, which means that we will not sit in a government like that,” continued Gal.

“I do not see Herzog heading a government. I am very concerned that if public apathy continues, then on March 18, G-d forbid, a left-wing government could rise to power,” he warned. “I do not think it's healthy for Israel and is even dangerous. Anyone who wants to ultimately live here in peace and quiet should understand that the way to do it is not to cave in. On the contrary, in order to reach a regional agreement we must be more strict in the face of terrorism, which has not happened in recent years and has invited more terrorism.”

Gal’s comments echo that of Yisrael Beytenu chairman, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who recently unequivocally declared that Yisrael Beytenu would not be part of a government headed by the left.

Liberman, however, later took a more cautious approach, saying in a televised interview that while Yisrael Beytenu is “an integral part of the nationalist camp”, he would not rule out anyone in the coalition.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Gal was asked about the social protests of 2011, which took place when he hosted a nightly finance-related show on Channel 10. Gal made headlines when he interviewed protest leader Daphni Leef and grilled her about a public letter she signed along with dozens of other pre-army-aged youths declaring a refusal to serve in the “army of occupation”.

“At the beginning of the social protest, I covered it live on my show because I thought that the problem of the cost of living is a problem that needs to be solved, but once I understood that Hadash and Meretz were behind the protest, I criticized it so that those 300 thousand people who identified with the protest know that those who led it were political movements with which they probably did not identify,” he explained.

“A social protest has to be something that connects the entire middle class and the weaker classes of society, without a political label,” stressed Gal.