As exit polls and partial results were predicting an election victory for the right-wing religious bloc led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, a likely member of Netanyahu’s coalition called his political opponents “animals,” in a message apparently meant to assuage the opposing bloc.
“We won’t treat you cruelly like you treated us,” MK Yitzhak Pindrus, of the Netanyahu-aligned ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, told the Ynet news site.
“We’re civilized people, not animals like you. In the government you stole… you trampled on us. You thought we were just rags. We’re human beings,” he said.
“We will treat you well, we won’t persecute you, we won’t harass you,” Pindrus added. “We’ll take care of our rights, but we won’t look for where we can harass you a little bit, where we can do you harm. We’re not like you. You have problems? Look in the mirror, not at us.”
He was apparently referring, among other things, to the taxes on sweetened drinks and on single-use plastic items that were imposed by the current government, which didn’t include the Haredi parties. The ultra-Orthodox community, which generally relies on those products more than the general population, saw the taxes as directed against it.
Netanyahu’s far-right and religious allies celebrated after exit polls were released on Tuesday night.
The polls from Israel’s major networks gave Netanyahu a clear path back to power, with 62 seats between his Likud faction, the far-right Religious Zionism and the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. At least 61 seats are needed to secure a majority and form a government in the 120-seat Knesset.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters at the party’s campaign headquarters in Jerusalem early on November 2, 2022, with his wife Sara at his side. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
As returns began to come in, the numbers shifted more in Netanyahu’s favor, with the leftist Meretz party, a linchpin of any possible Lapid-led government, just shy of the 3.25% percent, four-seat threshold needed to enter the Knesset.
With some 80% of votes counted, the partial results give Netanyahu’s bloc the victory, although that could all change as officials continue to tally the 4,843,023 ballots cast in the election — the highest turnout since 2015, at 71.3%.
Exit poll results have proven to be misleading in the past, and it will take hours, if not days, until results are clear.
