Whether Bibi keeps those campaign promises is another story. But if he doesn’t, the Likud will really have reason to cry “gevalt!” in the next election
Facing possible indictment and campaigning under constant media harassment, Binyamin Netanyahu confounded the pollsters once again, leading the Likud to its highest Knesset seat count in the past six elections. Netanyahu took flak even from some of his political allies for crying, “Gevalt, we’re losing, get out and vote!” but what’s overlooked is that politicians who run scared and create a sense of urgency often emerge victorious. Bibi’s killer political instincts were borne out.
He didn’t do it alone. Give credit to Likud’s top four: Yuli Edelstein, Yisrael Katz, Gilad Erdan, and Gideon Saar, who rallied behind their party leader, campaigning tirelessly with the message that Bibi is indispensable to the nation and deserves another term.
However, the Likud was only assured of victory after Netanyahu, gasping for breath at the finish line, declared that his next government would apply sovereignty to all Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. He also promised that not one settler would be evacuated — even under a Trump peace deal — and implied that the US president had already given a wink and a nod to his plan.
By doing so, Bibi undermined his far-right competitors, wooing enough of them to his fold, while winning back the more hard-line right-wing Likudniks who abandoned the party after Bibi pledged allegiance to the two-state solution at Bar-Ilan University in 2009. Whether Bibi keeps those campaign promises is another story. But he’s verbally committed, so if he doesn’t, or allows himself to be pressured out of it, then the Likud will really have reason to cry “gevalt!” in the next election. And the next time, it will be more like crying wolf, because no one will pay heed.
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