United Torah Judaism chairman MK Yaakov Asher warned against attempts by the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit to appeal to haredi voters.
"Many things look like etrogim - but this isn't an etrog," he said, referring to the citrus fruit in the Four Species, taken during the Feast of Tabernacles.
He added that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) "tried to speak nicely, but in the end, they looked after their own public, not ours. That's all well and good, but it's not an etrog," Asher said.
Regarding the shared hostility toward the haredi community that unites the parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, he added, "The leaders of the 'bloc of change,' who, to put it mildly, don't respect one another, and whose only unifying factor is the haredi individual, know how to sit down and agree not to attack each other in order to replace [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. Where is our public when its own family is at [stake]? We need to unite and work for the sake of Torah Jewry."
Asher also addressed the generational transition within the party and the removal of MK Moshe Gafni, who headed Degel HaTorah for many years.
"Rabbi Gafni is an extraordinary figure who commands respect and admiration - not only among the Degel HaTorah community, but throughout the wider public. If Gafni weren't haredi, he would have become prime minister long ago."