Netanyahu Said Worried Gur Hasidim Will Sit Out Vote as Campaign Leans on Small Parties to Quit Race

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is privately concerned that members of the Gur Hasidic community, one of Israel's largest and most politically organized Hasidic groups with roughly 30,000 voters, plan to abstain or cast protest votes for parties unlikely to clear the 3.25% electoral threshold, Channel 12 reported, according to a report by The Times of Israel. The frustration is said to stem from the coalition's failure to secure a law exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military conscription.

At the same time, Netanyahu's campaign has been applying pressure on candidates from small right-wing parties to withdraw before October 27, fearing a splintered right-wing vote could hand the election to the opposition. One candidate, Davidi Ben Zion, has already dropped out after what was described as personal pressure, and the campaign is reportedly now targeting Laly Derai, a bereaved mother whose son was killed fighting in Gaza.

Ofer Winter, who leads the small People of Israel party, has publicly rejected the pressure campaign, saying his party will not be pushed out of the race. Asked about his own political future, Netanyahu said only that he intends to win and does not want to entertain hypothetical scenarios.

With Netanyahu's bloc still polling well short of the 61 seats needed to govern, even a modest drop-off in Hasidic turnout combined with votes lost to parties that fail to pass the threshold could be enough to cost him the election.