Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett on Thursday evening called on voters who were disappointed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to vote for Jewish Home instead of choosing a left-wing party.
Speaking to Channel 10 News, Bennett warned that if the Jewish Home does not win enough seats in Tuesday’s elections, it will be left out of the coalition.
"We've proven that it is possible to be right-wing, Zionist and social," he said. Asked about the State Comptroller's report which revealed that his party did not report about some of its sources of funding during the previous election campaign, Bennett replied, "These questions do not interest the people of Israel. What bothers the people of Israel is how to bring down prices. These hallucinatory questions are being asked only because we are going up in polls."
Bennett explained that his main objective at this point is to prevent votes from going from the right to the center-left.
"I've recently seen people who went from Netanyahu to Kahlon. What I say is this: Those who are angry at Netanyahu that he is not social, vote for me. Stay in the rightist bloc and don’t go left,” he said.
Bennett estimated that despite the gap in the polls between the Likud and the “Zionist Union”, Netanyahu is the one who will head the next government.
"Buji is unable to form a government. Maybe among you in the media there is a great desire for him to replace the right, but Netanyahu will be the next prime minister," Bennett said, though he expressed concern that "if we are too small, we will not be brought into the government."
A new poll released earlier Thursday continues to show Likud falling behind Labor and Hatnua's "Zionist Union" a week before elections, with the distance between the two remaining at 21 seats to Likud and 24 to Labor.
The poll, which was conducted by the Maagar Mochot Institute for the haredi radio station Kol Barama, confirms findings by several recent polls in the last several days showing Likud trailing by 21 to 24. However it is estimated that Likud has a better chance of forming a coalition, and therefore may be given the nod to try creating a government first even if it falls behind Labor.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu launched a media blitz Thursday, granting interviews to Israeli television channels as well as other news sources, in a last-minute attempt to shore up support ahead of Tuesday's national elections.
In one of the interviews, Netanyahu told Channel 2 that he would not agree to a rotation government with Labor: "I will not be a prime minister in rotation, and that should be prevented," he stated.