Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has stepped more directly into Israel’s election campaign, using social media to pressure right-wing parties to merge and warning that fragmented lists could cost his father’s bloc its parliamentary majority.
In a series of posts and replies in recent days, Netanyahu has targeted both coalition parties and smaller right-wing factions polling close to Israel’s electoral threshold, the minimum share of the national vote a party must win to enter the 120-seat Knesset.
Yair Netanyahu warns divided right could cost his father’s bloc the election
(Photo: Shalev Shalom, Yair Sagi, Ido Erez)
“Winter will recommend Lieberman for prime minister. That’s pretty clear,” Netanyahu wrote Thursday, referring to former senior military officer Ofer Winter, who heads the Amcha Israel party, and opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman.
Netanyahu then turned to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose far-right Otzma Yehudit party is currently polling comfortably above the threshold.
“If you don’t unite with Smotrich, you’re playing Russian roulette with the fate of the country and could crown a Muslim Brotherhood-Lieberman-Yair Golan-Eisenkot government,” he wrote.
“Even if Smotrich is above the electoral threshold in the polls, that doesn’t mean that’s what will happen in reality.”
The warning refers to Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, whose party has faced uncertainty in some polls over whether it would clear the threshold.
Over the past 48 hours, Netanyahu has also responded publicly to several members of Winter’s Amcha Israel party.
When pro-Israel advocate Yoseph Haddad shared a poll showing the party winning eight seats, Netanyahu invoked Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party, which polled strongly ahead of the April 2019 election but ultimately failed to enter parliament.
“Feiglin got 10 seats in polls in the 2019 election, in which he didn’t cross the electoral threshold and brought the right-wing bloc below 61,” Netanyahu wrote.
Sixty-one seats are required for a majority in the Knesset.
In another post, Haddad addressed Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra’am, an Islamist Arab party that previously joined an Israeli governing coalition.
“Mansour, the days when you say one thing in Hebrew and something different in Arabic are over. Soon we will send you and your friends to the dustbin of history!” Haddad wrote.
Netanyahu replied: “Your party will only cause Mansour Abbas to become the senior figure in the Israeli government.”
He issued a similar warning to attorney Eran Ben Ari, another member of Winter’s party.
“What will be the policy on the judicial system of an Eisenkot-Lieberman-Yair Golan-Muslim Brotherhood government?” Netanyahu wrote. “Because that’s where you’re leading us.”
Netanyahu also addressed Lali Derai, a bereaved mother who has joined Winter’s party, laying out three scenarios he said could follow if Amcha Israel ran independently rather than joining forces with Smotrich.
“If you run alone and don’t unite with Smotrich, mathematically there can be no scenario other than the following three,” he wrote.
In the first, Netanyahu argued, Winter’s party would fail to cross the threshold and waste right-wing votes, helping bring to power a government led by opposition figures Gadi Eisenkot and Yair Golan together with Mansour Abbas.
In the second, Amcha Israel would cross the threshold but draw enough votes from Smotrich to push Religious Zionism below it.
In the third, Netanyahu said, Amcha Israel would fail to cross the threshold while still taking enough votes from Smotrich to ensure that his party also fell short.
Netanyahu holds no official role in the government or his father’s Likud party, but he has long been an outspoken political voice and one of the prime minister’s most forceful defenders on social media.
His latest intervention goes beyond defending his father and focuses directly on the arithmetic of the right-wing bloc, with a clear message to smaller parties: ideological competition matters less than ensuring that no right-wing votes are lost below the electoral threshold.