As the electoral deadline approaches, Israeli parties are making final moves, Eisenkot hints at anti-Netanyahu camp mergers while Gottlieb joins Ben Gvir's party after falling in Likud rankings.
Israeli election updates as parties finalize their strategies ahead of next month's vote. Key developments include Gadi Eisenkot's hints at unifications within the anti-Netanyahu camp and Tali Gottlieb's move from Likud to Itamar Ben Gvir's party.
Gideon Sa'ar entered the election hoping to unify right-wing parties and the anti-Netanyahu camp with former Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein. However, after the elections, he acknowledged that he failed in those efforts. Instead of returning to the Likud Party after serving as ambassador to the US and UN, he decided to go into politics on his own.
When Bennett unified with Yara Lapid, their combined parties went from polling at about 26 seats in late April to only about 15 seats. For Eisenkot, the sum of two parties must be equal to or greater than what they would poll for separately. Since Eisenkot is currently polling at 21-24 seats, he needs any merger to be beneficial to both parties, unlike the Bennett-Lapid unification which has been a failure by all metrics.
Tali Gottlieb, a controversial far-right Likud member, had been expected to be in the top five of the Likud Party. However, the Prime Minister's campaign against her was successful, and she fell to number 20 in the party list before leaving the Likud.
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