While ads for Labor, Yesh Atid, and The Tzipi Livni Party are already on
billboards across the country, Likud officials said their party was in no hurry
to start campaigning.
The officials said the Likud was content watching
Center- Left parties attack each other and did not want to distract the public
from such infighting in their rival bloc.
“We intend to sit back and
watch Shelly Yacimovich and Amir Peretz and Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid attack
each other,” a Likud official said.
When the Likud does begin
campaigning, it will contrast the unity on the Right that came with Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman joining forces
with the deep divides on the Left. The word leadership will feature prominently
in the Likud’s ads in the slogan “Netanyahu: The Strength to Lead” and in
negative ads comparing “Likud leadership” with “parties of political
refugees.”
One well-funded Likud campaign the Likud will begin soon will
target national-religious voters to prevent them drifting to the Habayit
Hayehudi party of Netanyahu’s former chief of staff Naftali Bennett. The Likud’s
religious Zionist campaign team will be led by coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin
and will include MK Tzipi Hotovely and Likud Knesset candidate Moshe
Feiglin.
The campaign marks the first time that Netanyahu has authorized
taking advantage of Feiglin’s popularity in the religious Zionist public for the
Likud’s political gain.
Netanyahu reportedly even sent his right hand man
and former chief of staff Natan Eshel to meet with Feiglin.
Feiglin would
not confirm that the meeting took place and said the religious Zionist campaign
team had not yet met.
A poll of Russian immigrant voters broadcast on
Channel 10 Sunday found that 68 percent intend to vote for the joint
Likud-Yisrael Beytenu list. No other party was in double figures, as Russian
immigrants on the Center-Left split their votes among The Tzipi Livni Party,
Labor, Yesh Atid and Kadima.