Yamina Party head Ayelet Shaked also called on Israelis not to vote for small right-wing parties that have little chance of passing the threshold and make it into the Knesset following the Sept. 17 elections.

(September 5, 2019 / JNS) Yamina Party head Ayelet Shaked turned down an offer by Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz, who invited both her and fellow Yamina candidate Naftali Bennett to join his government, though not Bezalel Smotrich.

Shaked told Arutz Sheva in a report on Thursday, “Gantz can forget about it. He referred derisively to Smotrich, a member of my party. So I have nothing to talk with him about. I don’t sit with people who insult my party members.”

She also called on Israelis not to vote for small right-wing parties that have little chance of passing the threshold and make it into the Knesset.

“The prime minister has issued a clear message that they have done a lot of polls, and Otzma Yehudit has no chance of passing the threshold,” she said. “Therefore, people who are thinking of voting for parties like Noam, Otzma Yehudit and HaPiratim, I say they shouldn’t vote for them, because this is where the right-wing government will rise and fall.”Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

According to the report, she added that “there are enough right-wing parties to vote for. The votes must be left in the bloc. I have responsibility for the entire bloc. I think we can win.”

The Yamina leader also sounded the alarm that it would be difficult to form a right-wing government of 61 Knesset seats following the Sept. 17 national elections, as “there is a great complacency and indifference in the public.”