Netanyahu Urges Smotrich and Ben Gvir to Unite Ahead of Elections to Avoid Right-Wing Defeat

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video calling on Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, and Itamar Ben Gvir, head of Otzma Yehudit, to unite for the upcoming Knesset elections. Netanyahu warned that failure to unite could lead to a repeat of the 1992 election outcome, when the right-wing was divided into three parties, failed to pass the electoral threshold, and consequently lost to the left. This loss, he said, led to the Oslo Accords, the presence of Yasser Arafat, and Hamas in the region. Netanyahu emphasized that whenever the right-wing factions ran together, they won, but when they ran separately, they lost. Acknowledging personal differences between Smotrich and Ben Gvir, Netanyahu stressed the need to overcome these issues and announced plans to invite them for discussions soon, stating that the public rightly expects unity from them.