Report: Bennett Offered UN Post If He Folds Campaign

YERUSHALAYIM
Former Minister Naftali Bennett on June 26, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has offered to appoint New Right leader Naftali Bennett ambassador to the U.N. if he withdraws from the election campaign, according to media reports quoting sources close to both camps.

However, Bennett denied the story. A spokesman said on Sunday that “Bennett did not receive any offer from the prime minister or anyone close to Netanyahu, and he is not interested in any position other than leading the New Right to success in the election,” according to The Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu’s associates liked the idea, because they are concerned that there are too many parties running to the Right of Likud. In the April election, the New Right and Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party did not cross the electoral threshold and 256,629 votes were lost.

The Likud was reportedly receptive to the idea because with Bennett out of the race and out of the country, it would be easier to form a joint list on the Right, with less chance of votes going to waste if New Right again fails to pass the electoral threshhold, as in April. It would also spare the prime minister Bennett’s vociferous criticism of his policies.

The current ambassador Danny Danon is expected to depart the U.N. post in the next two months.

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