Bezalel Smotrich, who is in the eighth place on the Jewish Home Knesset list, lashed out at Yachad/Ha'am Itanu, the haredi-religious Zionist party headed by MK Eli Yishai, during the nationalist rally in Tel Aviv Sunday evening.
Smotrich uploaded a photo of the crowd at Rabin Square as it gathered, in which most of the men wore the knitted kippot that are favored by religious Zionists – as opposed to the black kippot worn by men in the haredi sector.
"I hate to spoil the atmosphere of unity surrounding the square,” he wrote. “The prime minister and Minister Bennett gave impressive, uplifting nationalist speeches. Eli Yishai gave a political, narrowly partisan speech, lacking in soul.
"I searched and searched and could not find even one person from Shas, in all the masses that gathered here,” he observed. “Not one. I fail to see the connection between the religious-Zionist public that is filling the square here to the brim, and Eli Yishai's party. The public that he was supposed to bring, did not come. It is not here in the square and apparently is not voting Yachad. We are the suckers carrying him into the Knesset on our backs.”
Smotrich was referring to one of the main campaign angles of the Yachad party, which has pledged to serve as a bridge uniting the religious-Zionist and haredi publics.
"Eli Yishai is a good, dear man,” he continued, “but we should not put him in the Knesset. We need to make sure we have a large, Zionist Jewish Home. We must take care of our leadership. Our real home, from which we will take action and bring good to the nation of Israel.”