Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to meetings on Sunday, in an attempt to promote unification ahead of the Knesset elections.
In a message he posted on the X network, he wrote: "I invite Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister Bezalel Smotrich to meetings on Sunday. Not a single vote must be wasted, we must unite to save the right-wing bloc!""
The Otzma Yehudit party was quick to respond to the invitation and made it clear that the possibility of running together with religious Zionism had been definitively dropped from the agenda.
Ben-Gvir's firm statement stated: "The Otzma Yehudit Party and the Religious Zionist Party will not run together in the upcoming Knesset elections. This decision is final and absolute and will not change under any circumstances.".
""Accordingly, no contacts, meetings or conversations on the subject will take place, either directly or indirectly.".
Otzma Yehudit offered Netanyahu two alternatives to running together with Smotrich: "Otzma Yehudit calls on the prime minister to promote the two correct and realistic alternatives on the agenda - either unifying all the fragments of the small parties, or using the reservations the prime minister received from the Likud for Smotrich - in order to ensure the right-wing victory in the elections and the establishment of a true right-wing government.".
