Coalition infighting and radical proposals ahead of elections

Feiglin calls to shutter two-thirds of ministries; Bardugo and Eisenkot trade accusations over past contacts.

Coalition infighting and radical proposals ahead of elections — Moshe Feiglin, chairman of the Zehut party and number two on the joint list with Religious Zionism, said he would close the Education Ministry, which he called "the ministry of ignorance, corruption, and progress." Feiglin proposes operating only 11 ministries, similar to Ben-Gurion's government, and would close two-thirds of government ministries, including Culture, Environmental Protection, Agriculture, and Economy. In recent polls, his list with Smotrich stands at 5-8 seats.[^1] Meanwhile, Likud candidate Yaakov Bardugo, placed 11th on the party list, attacked Yashar! party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, claiming that Eisenkot approached him four years ago to examine the possibility of joining Likud. This contradicts Eisenkot's account that Netanyahu sent Bardugo to offer him the defense ministry position. The Otzma Yehudit party appointed attorney Hanamel Dorfman, the seventh candidate on its list, to head its national Election Day and get-out-the-vote headquarters.[^2] These moves reveal a coalition scrambling to define itself before the ballot. Feiglin's radical downsizing proposal may appeal to anti-establishment voters but alienates coalition partners who control those ministries. The Bardugo-Eisenkot spat highlights the personal rivalries and shifting loyalties within the right-wing bloc. Whether these internal battles help or harm the coalition's electoral prospects remains an open question.[^3] Iran's arsenal, Nobel outrage, and a new spokesperson: three stories, different frames — On Iran's missile capabilities, most sources led with the Bloomberg report that Tehran preserved production lines despite strikes, directly contradicting Trump's claims of crippling Iran. Maariv[^2] and Ynet[^1] explicitly framed the report as troubling and contrary to Trump's statements, while Mako and i24 focused on the preserved capabilities. In a sharp divergence, Israel Hayom ignored the Bloomberg report entirely, leading instead with a separate report that the US demanded Israel strike Iran alone, shifting the focus from Iran's resilience to Israeli-American tensions. On the Nobel Peace Prize, the sharpest c