"Bibists will disqualify me, but there are 10 mandates of soft Likud" | On the road with Naftali Bennett
Nahum Barnea accompanies Naftali Bennett on his election campaign, at an open parliament in Ashdod. Bennett crisscrosses the country, invites questions from hostile voters, and distributes an edited version of the conversations on social media. The column describes the challenges of the Change Bloc, the tension between Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot over a rejected rotation proposal, and the feeling among voters that there is no real alternative to Netanyahu.
Nahum Barnea accompanies Naftali Bennett on his election campaign, at an open parliament in a café in Ashdod. Bennett crisscrosses the country, invites questions from hostile voters, answers them, and distributes an edited version of the conversations on social media. The column describes the challenges of the Change Bloc, which has lost seven to eight mandates in polls in recent weeks, from 60-61 to 53-54. Barnea describes the tension between Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot, after Bennett secretly proposed a rotation and Eisenkot flatly rejected it. Eisenkot publicly denied any possibility of a rotation, both with Netanyahu and with Bennett. Barnea notes that the old political convention holds: the bloc leaders must internalize that they are dependent on each other, otherwise they will be dependent side by side. Bennett himself claims that there are 10 mandates of "soft Likud" that can be recruited, and that voters want peace and stability after four years of uncertainty.