After spending the past week debating how to handle Ofer Winter, Likud's campaign team reached a decision Monday at a meeting held in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
The central dilemma facing the party was whether to launch an all-out offensive against Winter and risk pushing him below the electoral threshold, potentially costing the right-wing bloc valuable votes.
According to a Channel 14 report, Monday's meeting concluded that the Amcha Yisrael party chairman poses a threat to the right-wing bloc, particularly due to the possibility he might align with Avigdor Liberman and Naftali Bennett in the future. Following this determination, Netanyahu is expected to direct Likud's slate to act decisively against Winter.
At a previous meeting on the subject, a heated argument erupted among senior Likud officials. Minister Shlomo Karhi argued that "Winter is Kaplan's hope," warning that if Winter succeeds in crossing the threshold, he may join the left, while if he fails, he could cause the bloc to lose votes entirely.
Minister Ze'ev Elkin also weighed in, claiming that if reports about Sharon Shalom's activity in Winter's campaign are accurate, this amounts to "full-blown Liberman." Meanwhile, Erez Tadmor and Yaakov Bardogo called for an immediate decision rather than waiting until the last moment, as they claimed happened in the past with Naftali Bennett.
