By GIL HOFFMANItamar Ben Gvir(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH 90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party will devote the days ahead of Tuesday’s election to persuading right-wing voters not to cast their ballots for the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party, a Likud spokesman said on Friday.The decision was made after studies done by the Likud’s American pollster, John McLaughlin, predicted Otzma will fail to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.Polls taken by the Likud’s Israeli pollster, Rafi Smith, similarly found that Otzma will only cross the threshold if voter turnout is very low.Netanyahu put out a video of himself standing beside McLaughlin and urging right-wing voters to refrain from voting for Otzma Yehudit at all costs.Otzma head Itamar Ben-Gvir responded with his own video, saying he did not know if he “should trust what Netanyahu said now, or what Netanyahu said when he sent his closest advisers to Ben-Gvir tell him that he will be in the Knesset.”Ben-Gvir said his party will cross the threshold, and will “enable the Likud to build a right-wing block of 61 MKs.” Otzma warned that Netanyahu will form a unity government with Blue and White if Otzma does not cross the threshold.“Otzma Yehudit in the Knesset would obligate Netanyahu to form a Right government and prevent a dangerous coalition with Benny Gantz,” Ben-Gvir said.The far Right Noam Party denied reports over the weekend that it would quit the election and endorse Otzma Yehudit.Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
