TIMES OF ISRAEL
In final push, Netanyahu and Lapid turn on their own camps
by Haviv Rettig Gur
March 10, 2021

…Two months ago, Netanyahu’s Likud was running an upbeat campaign focused on the vaccination campaign and national unity, a campaign that sought to unify the broader pro-Netanyahu camp and push it over the 61-seat threshold to become, for the first time in two years, a parliamentary majority.In his race toward that majority, Netanyahu engineered the union of Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit on his rightist flank to ensure neither party fell below the 3.25 percent vote threshold and lost tens of thousands of voters for the right. He produced a new loyalty pledge that he asked Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism to sign on to — as a signal to right-wing challenger Gideon Sa’ar that he won’t be able to rely on the Haredi parties to piece together a coalition without Netanyahu. READ MORE