Blue and White dumps ultra-Orthodox; tries to make up with secularists
Two weeks ahead of elections on Sept. 17, Blue and White has changed its strategy to regain and broaden support among secularists after realizing it has been 'hemorrhaging votes,' mainly to Avigdor Liberman.
When a major party changes strategy two weeks before an election like Blue and White has done, drama must be lurking in the background. And so it was among the closest advisers of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and the decision to make a 180-degree course correction and cease courting the ultra-Orthodox parties. In doing so, Gantz adopted the same position as the effective campaign being run by Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman — opposing religious coercion and ultra-Orthodox extortion. Gantz hopes it will prevent voters from abandoning his party for Yisrael Beitenu.
In the language of election campaigns, Blue and White has found itself “hemorrhaging votes.” In fact, the party has been losing them for weeks, mostly to Liberman, though it has also lost a few to the Democratic Camp, Labor-Gesher and even the Arab Joint List. Unlike the Likud, which polls indicate has a very loyal base — there are very few undecided voters among the Likud — Blue and White’s electorate tends to be more hesitant and subject to outside influences. The assessment within Blue and White is that if Gantz had not changed direction, the party would continue to lose votes.
Regaining the votes it lost to Liberman is critical in the Blue and White’s strategy. Without those votes, the chances of it emerging as the largest party in the Knesset are meager at best. Thus Gantz stopped courting the ultra-Orthodox right and declared that he will put together a government based on the “secular majority in Israel.” What makes this all the more dramatic is that just a few months ago, he had been willing to promise the ultra-Orthodox all the stars in heaven.
Gantz did the right thing, tactically at least, but he is also taking an enormous risk. There is no example in the last few decades of a major Israeli party declaring of its own accord that it will exclude the ultra-Orthodox parties in the equation for forming a government. Such behavior is much more characteristic of a small to midsize centrist party, like Tommy Lapid’s Shinui or his son Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. Gantz’s advisers surely explained to him that there is no way to become the prime minister of Israel without the ultra-Orthodox parties, but Gantz also faced the possibility of losing everything. Under the circumstances, he needed to do something dramatic.
