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.