Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a live video broadcast on Facebook on Friday afternoon ahead of the upcoming election.
Netanyahu said in his remarks that there is a concern that the next government will be headed by Benny Gantz following Friday’s poll in Israel Hayom which found that Blue and White has more seats than the Likud, even though the right-wing bloc has a greater number of seats overall.
"If that doesn't change, there is a real danger that they will be tasked with forming the government. Liberman has already joined Ayman Odeh and both said they would recommend Gantz,” said Netanyahu.
“Everyone who wants me to be Prime Minister should vote for Likud and not for other parties. This is especially true of parties that do not pass the electoral threshold and the votes go down the drain."
Netanyahu then moved on to attack the Yamina party led by Ayelet Shaked. "There is also Smotrich's and Shaked's party. It takes force to extract from them a recommendation of Netanyahu for the election. Both of them were already in a fraternal alliance with Lapid and who knows what they will do this time.”
“But why get to that? Those who want me as Prime Minister and those who want a right-wing government should vote Likud. It doesn't matter if they get 8 seats or 10. I respect Orit Strook, but it is more important that I will form a right-wing government and that we avoid a left-wing government," the Prime Minister continued.
Netanyahu then proceeded to criticize the media and specifically Channel 12 journalist Guy Peleg, who earlier this week published transcripts from interrogations in Case 4000.
"Every night I see the Gantz TV, Fake Channel 12 News, which every evening presents fragments of interrogations but they do not bring everything and just try to bring a word here and there. They don’t report anything that completely contradicts what they say.”
“And Guy Peleg went particularly far in quoting a state witness like Shlomo Filber. Peleg edited his testimony completely and after we caught him, he corrected himself on the air. A small edit. Peleg did not apologize to me but to Filber. They simply deal with Soviet propaganda, all they do is false election propaganda. The Likud will file with Judge Melcer a request to stop these criminal leaks because the penalty for such leakage is three years in prison.”
“Channel 12 is doing this propaganda in order to divert the public’s attention from the question of the election - who will be the Prime Minister and who will lead the country. If right-wingers complain about the lies of Channel 12 News it is 'incitement', and if the left complains it is freedom of speech. Every citizen has the right to express his opinion and no one’s mouth will be shut.”
Netanyahu also noted, "Channel 12 is now broadcasting a series called 'The Boys.' In the first half of the first episode, they talk about the murder of the three boys, but in all other episodes they do not deal with the three boys at all, but only with slandering Israel and tarnishing Israel’s reputation. It doesn’t surprise me because they tarnish Israel’s reputation every day. This is what left-wing and Soviet TV looks like and it doesn't surprise me that it comes just before the election."
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)