Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90
Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel

“Shooting inside the APC”

The polls show Bayit Yehudi winning between 16 to 18 seats in the upcoming election.

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But the polls are wrong, and the reason is Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel.

Bennett and Ariel have different political styles, different visions on how the party should run, different religious outlooks, and most importantly they’ve forgotten what they have in common and what they have to both gain and lose.

If this fighting between the two of them continues to escalate in the direction it is heading — and they are both to blame for the fighting — then the Bayit Yehudi party will split, and everything gained in the last election will be lost.

Ariel’s National Union, as a stand-alone party, is unlikely to have enough seats to pass the threshold, and even if it does pass they’ll be sidelined from any coalition. Either way, National Union seats will be siphoned away from Bayit Yehudi and lost.

And on the other side, Bennett, without Ariel (who is an excellent parliamentarian) will not really interest those who are looking for a right-wing and religious party, which is what the National Union bloc brings to Bayit Yehudi.

Without its strong religious/right-wing component, Bayit Yehudi will look like a poor man’s Likud, and why vote for a copy when you have the original- the Likud, who will be fielding their proven and strong right-wing/religious bloc.

If these two split the party, I simply don’t see myself voting for either one, and I’ve heard the same from other people.

So they had better get their acts together now, and each of them had better start to compromise and talk nicely to one another and figure out how to run and work together, for everyone’s benefit — then Bayit Yehudi will win big.

Otherwise, I’ll give be giving my vote to Feiglin and Hotovely, even if I have to hold my nose and vote Likud to do so.

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JoeSettler blogs at The Muqata.blogspot.com and occasionally on his own blog at JoeSettler.blogspot.com.