New Right: We Could Close a Deal on Joint Run ‘Tonight’

The New Right on Wednesday again expressed its desire to run jointly with the New Right List, and to create a single list that will combine the two parties and let them run as a “technical bloc,” with the parties going their separate ways after the election. “The proposal we made is more than fair, and actually favors the United Right List,” New Right sources told Walla News.

The sources were responding to comments by List head Rabbi Rafi Peretz from Tuesday night, in which he said that while he also wanted unity, the demands made by the New Right were “excessive.” But the New Right sources said that this was not the case, and that the party had made significant concessions in order to foster the joint run – even though polls show that the New Right would garner more Knesset seats than the List.

The proposal, according to Walla News, would create a list in which New Right and List candidates are equally represented, with List candidates taking the odd-numbered slots (3, 5, 7, etc.) – something that could give the List an edge in a situation where a vote-exchange agreement with another party (most likely the Likud) could give the united party an additional few votes, pushing a candidate into the Knesset.

With that, the head of the list would be Ayelet Shaked, whom according to all polls would be a much bigger draw than Peretz. Peretz would be number two on the list, followed by Bezalel Smotrich, and Naftali Bennett would take the fourth slot.

“This is something that is in both our interests,” the New Right sources said. “The insistence of the head of the United Right List to move things in other directions will prevent the united list from being created. As far as we are concerned, we can close a deal tonight. We await the positive response of the List.”

According to the Walla News report, the single rightwing list would include Otzma Yehudit candidate Itamar Ben-Gvir, but a report on Reshet Bet Wednesday said that Ben-Gvir was in talks with Moshe Feiglin of the Zehut party for a joint run, if both parties are not included in the single list. Neither Feiglin nor Ben-Gvir had any comment on the report.