Benjamin Netanyahu invited Itamar Ben-Gvir (Religious Zionism) and Bezalel Smotrich (Otzma Yehudit) to his home on Friday in Caesarea, to force them to negotiate face-to-face, and convince them to merge their parties and run together in the upcoming elections, according to a report by Daphna Liel.
Both sides claim they want to merge, but the attempts have not yet been successful. Polling done by the Likud indicates that one or the other may not pass the electoral threshold if they don’t merge, but if they do merge, they will have at least 10 seats, if not more. Furthermore, polling indicates that Ben-Gvir is the only one that is bringing in and attracting new voters who have never voted before.
Yariv Levin is also supposed to be at the meeting to help them bridge their differences.
The Likud is pushing them to alternate their list between the two parties.
Every seat counts if Netanyahu is going to be able to build a right-wing coalition with himself as prime minister.
