A senior official in the Religious Zionist Party sharply criticized the Noam party, which received 9,876 votes in the elections, arguing that its decision to run independently directly weakened both the Religious Zionist Party and the national camp as a whole.
According to the official, the Religious Zionist Party fell just 6,312 votes short of securing a seventh Knesset seat, which ultimately went to Likud under the surplus-vote agreement between the two parties.
"Seats are allocated using the Bader-Ofer method, which examines the relative number of votes when distributing the final seats," the official explained to Arutz Sheva-Israel National News.
"If the votes cast for Noam had gone to the Religious Zionist Party, the additional seat would have gone to us rather than Likud. The meaning is simple: Noam brought Erez Tadmor into the Knesset instead of Tzvi Sukkot. That is its decisive contribution to strengthening the Jewish identity of the State of Israel," he added sarcastically.
The official rejected Noam representatives' argument that their party's independent run had not harmed the national camp because the bloc had failed to secure the 61 seats needed to form a right-wing government in any case.
"That is a lie on two counts," he charged. "First, even without 61 seats, the internal composition of the Knesset and the strength of the Zionist, nationalist, and Torah-oriented parties are enormously important. The loss of a Religious Zionist Party seat to another party is a real blow to those forces, even if it does not, by itself, change the ability to form a government."
He argued that the damage extended beyond the loss of a single seat.
"If you add up all the votes wasted on parties that failed to cross the electoral threshold, including Noam and other parties that ran independently, you find that the national camp could have reached around 55 or perhaps even 56 seats."
The official explained that this would have made a significant political difference.
"There is an enormous difference between a situation in which the change bloc, together with Ra'am, holds a majority over the national camp, and one in which it also needs the active support of the Joint List. Whether a government can be formed with Ra'am alone, with the Joint List abstaining, or only with its explicit support is a question of tremendous public and political significance."
In conclusion, the official said, "The argument that if there are no 61 seats, it doesn't matter where the votes go is simply untrue. Every vote affects the balance of power in the Knesset, the identity of its members, and the possibility of forming a government. In Noam's case, the price paid by the Religious Zionist Party is clear to see."