19:22
In Internet video, PM blasts broadcast restrictions
“All day politicians have been speaking in the media,” Netanyahu protests.
Netanyahu had convened a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, but Israeli media was forbidden from broadcasting his appearance. Under Israeli election law, electioneering is not allowed on Election Day.
Netanyahu protests that left-wing politicians have been appearing in the media for much of the day.
“Tzipi [Livni], Boujie [Herzog], Yair [Lapid], representatives of the left, spoke in every possible studio and conducted flagrant electioneering,” he charges at the press conference, which was not broadcast in Israeli media, but a video was uploaded to Netanyahu’s Facebook page.
“The ‘Just not Bibi’ party doesn’t stop speaking in the media without anyone disturbing them. The only one they decided to prohibit from speaking in the media is me, the Likud prime minister,” he charges in the most direct accusation leveled by the prime minister against Central Election Committee chairman Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, who made the decision to nix the broadcast.
“No one will shut us up,” he vows. “In a democratic state, even a Likud prime minister has the right to say his piece.”
19:34
Likud is losing, warns Netanyahu
The ruling Likud party is losing the election, Netanyahu warns.
In a press statement uploaded to his Facebook page — electioneering is forbidden in Israel’s formal media outlets on Election Day — Netanyahu paints a dire picture meant to mobilize right-wing voters to the polls.
“We’re in a fateful campaign. There is still a meaningful gap between Labor and Likud. The only way to shrink the gap is to go to the ballot box and vote ‘Mahal,’” Netanyahu says, a reference to the letter-based symbols on Likud’s election slip.
Netanyahu blames foreign government and left-wing NGOs for the left’s improved showing in this election.
“The gap between Labor and Likud is based primarily on foreign funds that flow in vast quantities to leftist NGOs. Its purpose is to replace a Likud government headed by me with a left government supported by the Arab list,” he says
Ayman Odeh, chair of the Arab Joint List, figures large in Netanyahu’s warning to the right.
“Ayman Odeh, who supports [Zionist Union leader Isaac] Herzog, has already said not only that I must be replaced, but that I should be put in prison for defending the citizens of Israel and the lives of IDF soldiers [during last summer’s Gaza war]…. A left government that depends on such a list will surrender at every step, on Jerusalem, the 1967 lines, on everything,” Netanyahu rails, “and therefore there’s an immense effort of leftist NGOs to mobilize voters from the left bloc, primarily in the Arab sector, and in areas where leftists vote.”
Netanyahu’s warnings of high Arab turnout have been roundly condemned by the left and center earlier throughout the day. He addresses the criticism in his statement.
“I want to clarify: there is nothing illegitimate with citizens voting, Jewish or Arab, as they see fit. What is not legitimate is the funding, the fact that money comes from abroad from NGOs and foreign governments, brings them en masse to the ballot box in an organized fashion, in favor of the left, gives undue power to the extremist Arab list, and weakens the right bloc in such a way that we will be unable to build a government — despite the fact that most citizens of Israel support the national camp and support me as the prime minister from Likud.”