The 2026 election campaign is heating up, and tension between the mainstream haredi parties and Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir is reaching a peak.
In a combative interview with Kikar HaShabbat, Ben Gvir accused haredi MKs and operatives of hypocrisy, pushing back hard against attempts by Shas and United Torah Judaism to stem the flow of haredi votes to his party.
"All day they're running a campaign trying to bring me down, why?" he opened. "I was always there for them! I never cashed in on the haredi public. They know very well there were situations where other colleagues of mine celebrated at the expense of this public, and I always took a different approach. Let's be clear. I think army service is a mitzvah, it's a great thing, but unlike others, I never attacked. It was always with love, always with a hug. I have two haredi brothers-in-law; they're my brothers in every way."
Ben Gvir said the source of the haredi attacks against him is electoral pressure and the senior coalition partners' fear of losing mandates.
During the interview, he revealed: "Aryeh Deri told me countless times, both in cabinet meetings and in other settings: 'Listen, you're different, you're not like Bezalel Smotrich, you're really, truly a friend.' So what happened? Suddenly before the elections they see half a mandate here, a quarter mandate there, so suddenly everything changes? Suddenly it's the opposite, suddenly they go and send all kinds of MKs to attack me?"
"I won't say a word about the Rishon LeTzion; my issue is with the operatives"
When Ben Gvir was asked about the sharp attack by Rishon LeTzion HaGaon Rav Yitzchak Yosef, who ruled that voting for Ben Gvir constitutes a prohibition of karet because of his call for and leadership in bringing Jews up to Har HaBayis, Ben Gvir responded carefully toward the rabbinic leadership.
"I won't say one word about Maran the Rishon LeTzion. I believe everyone has their own rabbanim. I have my rabbanim, and my rabbanim have very, very broad shoulders. Don't belittle my rabbanim, and if they say something, don't belittle talmidei chachamim! My issue is not, chalilah, with Maran the Rishon LeTzion, but with the MKs and the operatives."
He concluded with a message to the haredi representatives in the Knesset: "Come on, you knew who to turn to these past four years! You knew to reach out on every small problem. On every phone call at two in the morning you really called me, you picked up the phone, and I was always there. Don't flip on me because of the elections."
