Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked received an offer Sunday to hitch her political fortunes to Yossi Brodny and his Jewish Home party after breaking with her short-lived running mate Yoaz Hendel on Saturday.
Shaked would lead a united slate under the name Jewish Home, bumping Givat Shmuel Mayor Brodny into the second spot. A source close to Brodny said an outstanding issue of contention was whether Shaked and Brodny would co-lead the party, or she would take the reins solo. A spokesperson for Shaked declined on Sunday to comment on whether talks were progressing with Jewish Home.
In addition to what Jewish Home sources said was an open conversation with Brodny, Shaked was set to meet on Sunday with Yamina colleagues Abir Kara and Nir Orbach, neither of whom signed on to run with the Zionist Spirit alliance.
Shaked’s partnership with Hendel in the new Zionist Spirit alliance rapidly unraveled this weekend, amid consistently low polling and differences in approach toward partnering with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to sources in the party.
Jewish Home publicly called for Shaked to join hands on Sunday morning, committing to give her the top spot in a joint slate targeting the national religious right.
“This slate will be the home of… hundreds of thousands of women and men of the national religious community. Only by joining forces will the general public have a right-wing, Zionist and meaningful political home,” the party’s statement read.
Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) and Yoaz Hendel (Derech Eretz) merge their parties to form the Zionist Spirit party, July 27, 2022. (Ariel Zandberg)
Shaked is among a number of right-wing refugees from her most recent party, Yamina. She inherited the sinking faction from former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is sitting out November’s election following a rocky year leading a coalition that required the party to make deep ideological compromises.
Shaked’s strategy of appealing to the “sensible” right has not borne fruit, and splitting with Hendel — a non-Orthodox soft-rightist — allows her to court religious Zionist voters, which made up about a third of Yamina’s 2021 voting base.
A source close to Brodny shared with The Times of Israel recent internal polling data showing that if Brodny and Shaked were to join hands as Jewish Home, they would raise each other’s political fortunes to within striking distance of the 3.25 percent electoral threshold to enter Knesset.
Allied, the party’s proprietary polling data shows that they could pull between 3.2% and 4.0% of the electorate. A spokesperson for Shaked said that the interior minister has not seen the data.
A source close to Brodny also said Jewish Home hopes that, should it appear close enough to the electoral threshold, Likud — as the largest party in the right-religious bloc — would decide to help it survive rather than burn precious right-wing votes in a narrow contest.
In the latest polls, Zionist Spirit hovered in the 1% range, outside of Knesset contention. Likud has been battering Shaked in its messaging.
It remains unclear who would sit in the potential combined party’s slate, as in two months of campaigning, Brodny has yet to attract a significant figure to his religious Zionist-focused roster.
Interior Minister and head of the Yamina party Ayelet Shaked, right, holds a press conference with Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel of Derech Eretz at Hamacabia Village in Ramat Gan, on July 27, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Hendel said on Sunday that he would continue to lead Zionist Spirit, an issue of potential legal contention as both he and Shaked are jointly signed on the party’s name. Shaked rejoining Jewish Home — the party she helped revive in 2013 before leaving it for another religious-right spinoff in 2018 — could be an elegant solution to what is rapidly becoming a nasty political divorce.
Hendel on Sunday defended his bid to continue leading Zionist Spirit, which he called a home for the “normal right.”
“I appreciate Ayelet Shaked. I understand the political choice she made. But the normal right deserves a home, and this home is Zionist Spirit,” Hendel said in a video message.
A Zionist Spirit source said that Shaked was blindsided by Hendel’s announcement about their split, which they said was uncoordinated.
“There’s nothing diplomatic in setting up your partner and going behind their back in such a vile way,” the source said.
Hendel charged that Shaked would lend the necessary seats to a narrow, Likud-led government helmed by Netanyahu. Going into Israel’s fifth election since 2019, the question of whether or not to return Netanyahu to power remains a dividing issue, even among right-wing ideological compatriots.
“Unfortunately, Yoaz Hendel and Zvika Hauser preferred sixth elections over forming a government [with Likud] if we’d be stuck in such a situation, so we parted ways,” Shaked said on Sunday.
The Zionist Spirit source said that Shaked has not changed her position and won’t sit with a 61-seat government, which would mirror the razor-thin one-seat majority held by the outgoing government.
However, the source said that opinions between Shaked and Hendel were divided on what would happen if Netanyahu’s bloc lacked a majority in the 120-seat Knesset and needed Zionist Spirit to complete its coalition.
“The question is if he has 59 and we put him up to 63 or 64,” the source said. “Ayelet does not want to go with Netanyahu, but doesn’t want to rule him out,” the party source said, adding that “Yoaz, in any situation, does not want Bibi [Netanyahu] to be an option.”
Zionist Spirit sources said that one of their main contentions was that, four days from the Thursday due date for final candidate rosters, the party was polling out of Knesset contention. Hendel and his running mate Hauser broke away from Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party after the government fell, and were expected to bring voters with them to Shaked. However, this scenario has not played out in the polls.
Kara, another Yamina refugee, last week struck out on his own to launch the Economic Freedom party, and plans to resign his Knesset seat this week in order to leave Yamina in anticipation of Thursday’s party list deadline. He has a small base to provide, but is unlikely to on his own push Shaked over the threshold. Orbach, whose spokesperson said he is still hoping for a potential ministerial appointment from Likud, has committed to aligning with Netanyahu.
Hendel told Channel 12’s Meet the Press Saturday evening that he was committed to running in November, while equivocating on whether it would be with Shaked. But it remains unclear who would join him and Hauser.
