A message to Winter? Netanyahu: "Do not waste your votes on the small parties"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a sharp attack today, Monday, against political initiatives to establish new right-wing parties. He warned against a nightmare scenario in which the loss of votes would lead to the rise of a left-wing government that would, in his view, destroy Israeli democracy.

In a video he published, Netanyahu recalled the 1992 election campaign, in which Yitzhak Shamir lost to Yitzhak Rabin:

"There were those on the right who were angry at Shamir for one reason or another, and they established parties to the right of the right. Some of them did not pass the electoral threshold and the left came to power."

"The first thing he did – he brought Arafat and his cronies from Tunis, and they established Palestinian entities," the Prime Minister continued, linking the loss of votes on the right directly to terror: "The continuation is known. We paid with thousands of murdered and wounded, and we are still dealing with this problem, from this mistake that right-wing parties and splinters of the right made and brought down the right-wing government."

"Throwing the votes in the trash"

Netanyahu's central message was aimed at new organizations on the right, including initiatives like the parties of Gilad Erdan and Ofer Winter. "Are we going to make this mistake one more time? I hope not," he said.

"I hear many parties that are being established here and saying: 'We know everything, we will do everything.' What needs to be done is the exact opposite – not to establish the splinters of parties that will only burn our votes. It is like taking them and putting them in the trash!"

In the second part of the video, Netanyahu moved on to attack the opposition leaders with unusual sharpness, and signaled the alternative coalition that he claims will be established if the right splits: "The Eisenkot party will rise together with Yair Golan, with Mansour Abbas, and together with Avigdor Lieberman who always goes with them. What they will do here immediately, they will surrender, they will sell, they will hold a fire sale of the country."

The Prime Minister concluded his remarks with a wake-up call to the voters: "The only way to prevent this is not to vote for these small parties, there will be no trace left of them. Do not waste your vote – it is possible to prevent this, it is in your hands."