Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar urged small right-wing parties to follow Gantz out of the race, The Jerusalem Post reported. "Right-wing parties that are running and are below the electoral threshold or close to it, should do what Benny Gantz did just an hour ago: withdraw from the race," Sa'ar said. He cited the 1992 election as a warning: "In the 1992 elections, due to the loss of votes from three small right-wing parties, the left-wing camp reached 61 seats, and we got the Oslo Accords."
Smotrich, the finance minister and chairman of Religious Zionism, named Winter directly. He accused "Ofer Winter and the other party fragments that are nowhere near the electoral threshold" of "throwing votes in the trash" and called on Winter to "snap out of it and take responsibility." He also urged right-wing voters to avoid parties at risk of missing the threshold. "We don't gamble with the State of Israel!" Smotrich said.
Winter's party replied with a statement that thanked Gantz for "his decades of service to the State of Israel" and cast Amcha Yisrael as the home for right-wing voters. "Anyone who wants a right-wing party that serves and delivers decisive results, and is not dependent on Goldknopf's 61st vote, has only one political home," the statement said.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview that he had offered Winter a place in Likud and had also suggested Winter join one of the right-wing parties. Netanyahu said the positions held by members of Winter's party raise concern.
