Netanyahu and Shaked
Netanyahu and ShakedPhoto by Noam Revkin Fenton & Yonatan Sindel / Flash90

Likud party members gathered for a festive toast to mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, together with Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu told the Likud MKs: "You have to say everywhere - Ayelet is not passing", referring to Interior Minister and Jewish Home chairwoman Ayelet Shaked, who is polling below the electoral threshold.

Netanyahu told his party that the right-wing bloc has the 61 seats needed to form a coalition.

“We are at 61 seats, we will win more and set up a stable right-wing government for four years if all Likud supporters go out and vote," Netanyahu said.

Minister Shaked replied to Netanyahu on her Twitter account and wrote: "Netanyahu, you need to understand: without. Ayelet. there is. no. right-wing. government."

Last night, Shaked apologized to her supporters for her role in the formation of the Bennett-Lapid government during a campaign event in Givat Shmuel.

"I did everything to exhaust the possibility of establishing a right-wing government. But Gideon Sa'ar and Bezalel Smotrich torpedoed the move. I made the most difficult decision in my public life - I backed Bennett as a party leader and joined the government. The dilemma between the continuation of election rounds and the establishment of an alternative government tore me apart. There are those who laugh at the deep pain that accompanied this dilemma for me, but it is the truth that anyone who was around me in those days can testify to. And as always, the only thing I considered in the decision I made was what was right for the State of Israel," she explained.

"I know that the decision hurt many of you. Who sent me to the Knesset. With whom did my people make a covenant? This alliance has proven itself over many years and I am aware of the depth of disappointment caused to many of you. It is precisely when the trust is strong and the relationship is based on stable foundations that the feeling of harm increases. Although I protected the interests of the national camp at every point and at every stage. I waved the flag of the settlements, the flag of correcting the legal system, the preservation of Israel as a Jewish state. Some of you did not want this government and I was a member of it. The decision broke a million hearts of people who supported us for ten years, who were with us the whole way.

"I urge you to look at the last decade. For the first time, your public representatives, including me, led a national right-wing policy in all areas - political, economic and legal. The Palestinian issue fell off the agenda. The ideological cloning in the legal system stopped and the legal discourse changed its form. The phrase economic right is no longer foreign in the political system.

"Today, I ask for forgiveness from my supporters, from my beloved audience, whose heart was broken when I joined the process of forming the last government. I believe you will find in your hearts the place to forgive me," Shaked said.