Shas releases video clip supporting Netanyahu

After Bayit Yehudi ordered to remove ads featuring PM, Shas releases video with message "voting Shas, keeping Netanyahu.”

By LAHAV HARKOV
Shas leader Arye Deri in campaign video 370 (photo credit: screen shot)
Shas leader Arye Deri in campaign video 370
(photo credit: screen shot)
Just as Bayit Yehudi was required to remove all advertisements featuring Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Shas released a video with a similar aim.
The Central Elections Committee ordered Bayit Yehudi to remove by 1 p.m. Friday ads with a photo of party leader Naftali Bennett next to Netanyahu and the message “Strong Together, Voting Bennett.”
However, on Friday, Shas released a video with a nearly identical message.
The clip stars party co-leader Arye Deri putting a Shas ticket in a ballot box.
Deri turns the ticket around, and on the back, there is a picture of Netanyahu.
“Whoever votes Shas gets a double benefit – Shas and Netanyahu – because only Shas will make sure that Netanyahu takes care of the weak. Only Shas will make sure the government keeps Jewish tradition. Voting Shas, keeping Netanyahu,” Deri says.
Likud Beytenu had requested on Thursday that the Bayit Yehudi advertisements be removed because they are “manipulative and deceitful,” implying that Netanyahu’s victory is ensured and that Bennett would be in the coalition, though no such agreement has been made.
Bayit Yehudi responded that the ad was meant to express its intention to recommend to President Shimon Peres that Netanyahu form the next government, and that it plans to “strengthen and watch him.”
Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said that Bennett and Netanyahu’s appearance together in the same advertisement could mistakenly create the impression that the two had joined together, and that voting Bayit Yehudi is actually a vote for Likud Beytenu.
Rubinstein ruled in the same decision that Shas’s commercial is not misleading, because unlike the Bayit Yehudi advertisements, it clarifies that voting for Shas is not the same as voting for Likud Beytenu.