The post appeared after testimonies emerged from flotilla personnel arriving from Europe. Hairston wrote, "Just as murderers and rapists possess a right to exist in prison, so the Israeli leadership deserves long lives behind bars." She continued, "The testimonies of the detainees from the flotilla are horrifying. The genocide state in full display – beatings, being held kneeling with hands cuffed behind the back for hours, denial of medical treatment, degrading treatment, and threats. Not to mention that abducting the people from the flotilla in international waters constitutes a violation of international maritime law."

Tel-Hai College issued a response, "The lecturer's serious statements were written on her personal account and do not represent the position of Tel-Hai Academic College as an academic institution. Tel-Hai Academic College stands proudly with Israeli Air Force soldiers and security forces and thanks them for their dedication and protection of the State of Israel and its citizens. Many of our students served in the reserves during the past two years. During this period, as we return with excitement to our northern campuses after more than two years, the opening of the academic year represents the resilience of the region and Tel-Hai's deep commitment to the Galilee community and Israeli society."

Professors for a Strong Israel issued a statement, "Israeli academia must not function as a sanctuary for lecturers who slander the State of Israel. Following Dr. Ilana Hairston's statements from Tel-Hai College, comparing the State of Israel to the Third Reich, Professors for a Strong Israel warns that this represents a serious and persistent phenomenon of lecturers in higher education institutions who abuse freedom of expression to damage the State of Israel and Israeli Air Force soldiers."

Shachar Yifrach, chairman of the Tel-Hai Student Union, stated, "Dr. Ilana Hairston's post crosses a red line both clearly and publicly. The union vigorously condemns these statements. Comparing the State of Israel to the Third Reich is a perilous comparison that damages Holocaust memory and harms reserve soldiers, including our students who risked their lives for the state. The union adopted the IHRA definition against antisemitism last year, and we invite the college and other institutions nationwide to adopt the definition as we have."

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President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government should abandon proposed legislation to overhaul the country's judiciary in favor of a model with broad national support.

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The government's proposal has sparked mass protests across Israel and Herzog has been mediating between the sides.

"There are agreements over most issues, yes, not all, but the vast majority. Certainly enough to abandon the legislation currently proposed and bring in its place for discussion ... a different agreed upon piece of legislation," Herzog said in a televised address.

The plan, Herzog noted, was "wrong and heavy-handed, and undermines the very foundation of our democratic society." He said the government must shelve the current language and start from scratch.

The government's proposal has sparked mass protests across Israel and Herzog has been mediating between the sides.

Netanyahu had to be airlifted on Thursday to the country's main international airport for an official overseas trip after throngs of cars and protesters prevented him from driving there.

The demonstrations were part of nationwide protests underway for more than two months against Netanyahu and his government's contentious plan to overhaul the judiciary.

Demonstrators had made blocking Netanyahu's route to the airport a centerpiece of their efforts, and the optics of the Israeli leader having to make alternate travel plans were a win for the protest movement.

The helicopter ride, far from the snarling traffic triggered by the protest, was also sure to deepen Netanyahu's reputation as being out of touch with Israelis at a time when the country finds itself torn apart over the government plan and the economy is slowing.

Thursday's disruptions also disrupted a visit by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whose schedule was rearranged to keep his engagements close to the airport.

Austin briefly waded into the Israeli domestic turmoil during a news conference, where he repeated President Joe Biden's recent comments that the "genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances and on an independent judiciary."

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If former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs a plea bargain that forces him to resign from political life, the citizens of Israel will lose the person they believe is most suited to lead a government, according to an Israel Hayom poll conducted this week amid recent reports of a potential plea deal between Netanyahu and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit.

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The poll, which was conducted on Tuesday by the Maagar Mochot research institute for Israel Hayom, found that 34% of the people questioned believe Netanyahu is the best person for the job of prime minister. Lagging in a distant second, just 17% of those questioned said Yair Lapid is most suited for the position. Current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, was believed to be most suitable by just 6% of the people questioned, even less than several senior Likud members (described in the survey as Netanyahu's "competitors"), and even less than Benny Gantz (7%).

The belief in the political system was and remains that if Netanyahu concludes that his chances of becoming prime minister again in the coming years are high, while his trial is ongoing, he will not sign a plea agreement; and that if he feels those chances are slim, he will sign one.

The poll, which included a representative sample of the adult population in Israel of 504 people, with a maximum sampling error of 4.4%, also found that Netanyahu still lacks several mandates to return to power – assuming that Bennett's Yamina party won't join a Netanyahu-led government. The Likud, according to the poll, would increase its number of seats to 34 under Netanyahu, and that the remainder of the right-wing-Haredi bloc currently in the Opposition would have 58 mandates. If Yamina joins, this bloc under Netanyahu would have 63 mandates.

Yamina, based on the poll, would receive just five mandates. Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party would receive a mere three mandates and fail to pass the electoral threshold. Among those who voted for Yamina in the election for the 24th Knesset, only one-third said they would vote for the party again. Of those voters, 19% said they would vote for the Likud party, while 13% said they'd vote for the Religious Zionist Party (upping the number of its mandates to eight). One-quarter of the people questioned in the poll are "sitting on the fence" and presently don't know which party to support. New Hope voters mainly dispersed between supporting Likud (19%), Yamina (12%), and Blue and White (4%). Overall, 29% of New Hope voters said they were still undecided over which party to support.  

Public opinion divided over plea deal

The political system is still unsure if the coming days will bring an end to the Netanyahu era, as are potential voters. And yet, the results of the poll indicate that right now, the public prefers one candidate to replace Netanyahu as leader of the Opposition – Nir Barkat. If Barkat is elected to lead Likud, it would result in fewer mandates, but not by much. 

A Barkat-led Likud would receive 29 mandates, which together with the right-wing bloc in the Opposition would be worth 59 mandates. Similar to Netanyahu, Barkat would lack a majority in the Knesset without Yamina. However, there is speculation that right-wing parties in the coalition could support Barkat and join a government under him, contrary to the scenario in which Netanyahu would continue to lead Likud.

With that, if Likud is headed by Yuli Edelstein or Israel Katz, the largest party currently in the Knesset would receive significantly fewer mandates and essentially fall behind Yesh Atid. Edelstein, according to the poll, would lead to Likud to just 16 mandates, while Katz would lead the party to 15.

And what does the public think about a potential plea deal? Apparently, it is extremely divided. The poll examined who the winner and loser of such a deal would be, and found that 36% of those questioned believe the State Attorney's Office and attorney general will have conceded more to reach a plea based on the parameters described in media reports. On the other hand, 23% of those questioned believe Netanyahu will have lost if such a plea deal is finalized. In the middle, 29% of those questioned said both sides will have conceded equally, while 12% believe neither side will have conceded. 

Although the distribution is not clear-cut, it's fair to note that supporters of right-wing parties generally believe Netanyahu will have conceded more in such a plea bargain, while supporters of left-wing parties believe the attorney general and State Attorney's Office will have conceded more to reach the reported plea agreement.

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An overwhelming majority – some 93% -- of Arab residents of east Jerusalem prefer to live under Israeli governance than that of the Palestinian Authority, a new poll from the Palestine News Network shows.

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The survey asked respondents whether they supported continued Israeli control of the city or a transfer of it to the Palestinian Authority.

Of the 1,200 Arab residents queried, 1,116 said that they preferred the former. Only 84 respondents answered that they would prefer the city to be under the responsibility of the PA, although they also noted that they would refuse to give up their Israeli identity cards and/or residency documents.

Only five respondents said they would prefer to carry PA identity cards.

The result of the survey contrast markedly with a poll conducted in May 2020 that indicated that a majority of Arab residents of east Jerusalem would prefer Palestinian citizenship over Israeli.

In the 2020 survey, conducted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in conjunction with Palestinian pollsters, only about 15% of people asked said they preferred Israeli citizenship over Palestinian citizenship, compared to 52% who said they would rather be "Israeli" and not "Palestinian" when questioned on the matter in polls conducted between the years 2010-2015.

Responding to the findings of the 2020 poll, researcher Dr. David Pollock explained that while most Palestinians still believe Israel is an illegitimate state and yearn for control over all of "'historic Palestine," they are "realistic enough to tell pollsters this is 'a dream' and that 'Israel is here to stay.'"

Nadav Shragai contributed to this report.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org. Nadav Shragai contributed to this report.

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett does not believe the coalition government will last long enough for Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to become premier, Channel 12 News reported Thursday.

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"I believe that the rotation will not happen," Bennett was quoted by Channel 12 News as saying in a closed meeting.

"There is a considerable chance the government will dissolve between the budget and the time of the change of power, for various reasons," he said.

When asked about the report, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed Bennett had made the remark but said the prime minister would honor the rotation nonetheless.

"The partnership with Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is based on mutual trust and fairness," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement, according to Channel 12 News.

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"Ahead of the passage of the budget, which guarantees the stability of the government, there are predictable reports of various quotes from various times that were only … appraisals."

"The budget will pass, and the partnership will continue," the office said.

In a statement, Lapid said, "Both Bennett and I have one goal – to pass a budget and bolster the government. I won't be distracted by leaks and recordings aimed only at doing harm. I don't deal with nonsense.

"They won't succeed in souring the good atmosphere in the government. We will continue to work well together for the good of the State of Israel," he said.

In June, Lapid and Bennett agreed to a rotation deal for the premiership that will see the Yesh Atid party leader take over the role of Israel's prime minister in August 2023.

i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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Over the past decade, for the first time in its history, Israel developed a strong diplomatic posture in the region and worldwide. Israel developed strategic ties with Arab states, and the states of the eastern Mediterranean. It has built close ties with the EU's Visegrád Group of central European states Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well as Austria and Italy. Israel upgraded its diplomatic and trade relations with the states of Africa and Central and South America, as well as with India, Japan and South Korea.

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Unfortunately, it is likely that all Israel achieved through painstaking effort may be lost after the new governing coalition led by Yair Lapid takes power next week. This is the case for three reasons.
First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the author of Israel's diplomatic triumphs. They are predicated on his foreign policy vision that diplomatic ties are built on common interests even more than ideology and that Israel has much to offer the nations of the world.

There are many things that divide the members of the incoming governing coalition. But they agree on one thing – they all hate Netanyahu. So, the first reason Israel may soon abandon its diplomatic achievements is because Lapid and most of his partners in the coalition want to erase Netanyahu's accomplishments.

The second reason Israel's diplomatic position is likely to soon crash is that Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz along with most of their partners do not share Netanyahu's diplomatic vision. Lapid is set to become foreign minister. Lapid, Gantz and the rest of the members of the incoming coalition are members of Israel's elite class. Israel's elite encompasses the political left, the media, the senior brass of the security establishment and the senior leadership of the foreign and justice ministries and right-wingers who prefer their company and plaudits to those of members of their own camp. Israel's elites, almost to the man believe Israel's diplomatic position is exclusively a function of its relations with the Beltway establishment. The closer Israel is to the American ruling class, the stronger it is internationally. The weaker Israel's relations with the American elite, the weaker its international posture.

The third reason Israel's decade of diplomatic achievements is likely to end in short order is that as America-obsessed elitists, Lapid, Gantz and their ilk don't understand the importance or potential of what Netanyahu has accomplished. They will not dedicate the necessary resources to maintain the ties he forged with the likes of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz or Brazil's President Javier Bolsonaro, because they don't value those ties. So the ties will wither.

This then brings us to Washington, the only place that matters for the incoming cabinet ministers.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before House and Senate committees. His remarks showed that just as Lapid and his colleagues are set to tear down Netanyahu's legacy, US President Joe Biden, Blinken and their advisors have taken an industrial-sized eraser to Donald Trump's policies and achievements in the Middle East.

Take the Golan Heights. In 2019, Trump recognized Israel's sovereignty over the strategic enclave along its borders with Syria and Jordan. When asked whether the Biden administration also recognizes Israel's sovereignty, Blinken responded, "As a practical matter, Israel has control of the Golan Heights, irrespective of its legal status, and that will have to remain unless and until things get to a point where Syria and everything operating out of Syria no longer poses a threat to Israel, and we are not anywhere near that."
Or the shorter answer: No.

Then there's Iran. Democrat senators on Monday joined their Republican colleagues in demanding clarifications about the administration's nuclear diplomacy with Iran. The 2015 nuclear deal, to which the administration is committed placed temporary restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities and in exchange, gave Iran an open road to a military nuclear capability by 2030 and $150 billion in sanctions relief. Trump abandoned the deal in 2018 because Iran was breaching the deal's restrictions on its nuclear actions and reinstated US economic sanctions that the Obama administration lifted.

The Democrat and Republican lawmakers asked how canceling US economic sanctions on Iran would achieve the goal of limiting Iran's nuclear activities given that Tehran had been breaching the deal's limitations on its nuclear activities all along. They wanted to understand why Iran would agree to longer and stronger restrictions on its nuclear work in the future, as Blinken promises if the 2015 deal gives them an open path to the bomb. And they wanted to know if Blinken could guarantee that money from sanctions relief wouldn't end up in the coffers of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Blinken responded to all of the questions with a non-sequitur.

"Its [Iran's nuclear] program is galloping forward…The longer this goes on, the more the breakout time gets down…It's now down, by public reports, to a few months at best. And if this continues, it will get down to a matter of weeks."

Blinken's alarmist view wasn't a preamble to a call for military strikes against Iran's nuclear installations or even for an announcement of a new strategy of maximum economic pressure aimed at collapsing the regime.
To the contrary, Blinken said that in light of the dimensions and urgency of the threat, the US needs to immediately return to the 2015 deal, that is, give Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, to "put the nuclear problem in a box."

In plain English, Blinken said that the senators' concerns were irrelevant. The administration's policy goal is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and a regional hegemon. The administration's goal is to be Iran's friend.

Just days before Blinken renounced US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and said the goal of US policy towards Iran is to be the ayatollahs' friend even if that means letting Iran become a nuclear-armed regional hegemon, he met his "friend" Benny Gantz at the State Department. Clearly, the meeting made no impression on Blinken. If Gantz had hoped that "good chemistry" with the Biden crowd would make it possible for him to influence them, he was doubtlessly disappointed.

Sometime in 2014, Netanyahu realized that then-president Barack Obama and his team – which is now Biden's team – had no intention of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed hegemonic power. He reacted to this realization by spending the last eight years developing an interest-based alliance with the Arab Gulf states who are also threatened by Iran.

The Trump administration welcomed this alliance. The Biden administration is so hostile to it that Biden opened an offensive against Saudi Arabia immediately after he entered office. The administration refuses to call the Abraham Accords by their name. And during Hamas' recent mini-war against Israel, the administration reportedly pressured Abraham Accords member states the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco to condemn Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas's missile capabilities. There is no doubt that Netanyahu spent long hours working to ensure that no such condemnations were made.

Facing the administration's visceral hostility to Israel's ties with the Sunni Arab states, Lapid, Gantz and their colleagues be far less likely to move heaven and earth to maintain them.

Then there's Jerusalem. On Monday, 16 Republican senators signed a letter to Biden expressing their opposition to the administration's plan to open a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinian Authority and to reopen the PLO's representative office in Washington. The explained that Trump closed the consulate as required by the Jerusalem Embassy Act. He closed the PLO office in DC because it operated in breach of the Promoting Justice and Security for Victims of Terrorism Act, otherwise known as the Taylor Force act. Opening a consulate in Jerusalem and reopening the PLO office in Washington would both be contrary to US law, they noted.

While the senators were doubtlessly right, the administration is committed to following through on its plan. The only way Biden and his advisors may feel compelled to change course is if their efforts are beset with trenchant opposition.

It won't get any from Lapid's coalition. Labor leader and incoming transportation minister Merav Michaeli said this week she intends to cancel 1.5 billion shekels ($462 million) now budgeted for improving roads in Judea and Samaria. Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas is ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. Not only will he not oppose opening a consulate to the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, he might attend the opening of a US diplomatic mission in Israel's capital that is dedicated to serving Israel's Palestinian enemies.

One of Israel's greatest diplomatic assets in recent years has been the close ties it cultivated with EU member states led by nationalist leaders. Time after time, these leaders blocked efforts by the EU leadership in Brussels to condemn Israel.

The leader who has done the most to block EU condemnations of Israel has been Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The most outspoken critic of ties between Jerusalem and Budapest has been Lapid. When Orbán came to Israel on an official visit, Lapid referred to event as a "national disgrace," because Orbán has expressed admiration for Hungary's wartime leader and Nazi collaborator Admiral Horthy. Like the heads of the US Jewish community with whom he is closely allied, Lapid is deeply hostile to European nationalist leaders despite their enthusiastic support for Israel. As foreign minister, Lapid is likely to harpoon Israel's ties to the Visegrád Group and so destroy Israel's ability to prevent EU condemnations of Israel.

What about Naftali Bennett? Where will the prime minister-designate be in all of this? Even in the unlikely event that Bennett will want to maintain Netanyahu's policies, he won't have the power to do so. Although in theory the government is supposed to give equal weight to its right and left-wing members, it is hard to see how this will manifest itself in practice. Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu party is still considered a right-wing party. But Lieberman has adopted the left's positions on nearly every issue. It is hard to imagine that he would side with Bennett on anything controversial, particularly if it involves maintaining Netanyahu's legacy. And even if Liberman sides with Bennett, they won't have the power to force Lapid to do anything he doesn't want to do. At best, they will be able to block him from doing some things that they don't want him to do.

If Bennett decides to act independently as prime minister on behalf of Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights, or blocking Iran from getting the bomb or anything at all that Lapid and the Left oppose, he will find himself raked over the coals by his coalition partners and the media. Without a political base, Bennett – like his fellow right-winger New Hope Party leader Gideon Sa'ar – will quickly be presented with two options. He can either adopt the ideological positions of the left, as Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ariel Sharon did before him, or he can bring down the government and leave public life.

It has taken the Biden administration less than six months to unravel Trump's achievements in Israel and the wider Middle East. We can expect the incoming government to unravel Israel's diplomatic position on their first day in power.

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If we have learned one lesson from the three recent elections, it's that we need to reduce the number of parties running for the Knesset – at both ends of the political spectrum.

The overabundance of parties leads to a huge number of votes being wasted on lists that don't make it past the minimum electoral threshold of 3.25%; a lack of the public's faith in the governability of the Knesset; and often a situation in which neither bloc emerges as a clear winner. What's worse, given the current state of Israeli politics, it is not inconceivable to think that we'll find ourselves heading into another election soon after the upcoming one.

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Let's take a look at the numbers: In the last year and a half, we've had three close elections, but what was notable was the fact that in the election for the 21^st Knesset, in April 2019, 366,000 valid ballots were thrown away. This has astonishing ramifications, since in that election 32,860 votes were needed to secure a single Knesset seat. In other words – in that election, the parties that failed to make it past the minimum threshold threw away some 11 seats.

A simple tally of the right-wing parties that didn't make it into the Knesset – Yamina (then the New Right) and Zehut – shows us that technically, if those lists had run on a joint ticket, Israel would have a right-wing government with a majority of about 70 Knesset seats. That would have allowed it to easily pass basic laws without any need for Avigdor Lieberman, who probably would have joined it, anyway. It's hard to conceive how that split on the Right has affected Israel.

Only some of the lesson is being learned

In the election for the 22^nd Knesset in September 2019, it looked as if some of the parties had learned their lesson, and they united. When MK Orly Levy-Abekasis ran with a larger party and three right-wing parties formed the United Right, it dropped the number of lost votes down to 126,000, about a third of what it was in the April 2019 election. In the September 2019 election, each Knesset seat was "worth" about 35,000 votes – meaning that instead of 11 seats lost because parties failed to make it past the minimum threshold, 3.5 seats were lost. But when we examine those lost seats, it turns out that 2.9 of them were lost to the Right because of Otzma Yehudit and Tzomet. In that election, too, splits on the Right led to a draw.

In the March 2020 election for the 23^rd Knesset, it appeared that both sides learned their lesson. And still, the Right dropped 24,500 votes on parties that didn't make it past the minimum threshold.

These three close election taught both camps that they need to minimize the number of votes lost to small parties. Still, going into the campaign for the 24^th Knesset, the political system is in absolute chaos that could see a huge number of votes that fall by the wayside, and another undecided election.

If the election were held right now, with the parties as they currently stand, a lot more than 300,000 votes would be lost to the minimum threshold. That could chip away at the government's legitimacy or make the government so diverse that it is impossible to form a government. And then, we would have to hold yet another election.

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Katz, who denies any wrongdoing, is accused of allegedly using his office to advance his own financial interests as well as those of his friend, businessman Mordechai Ben-Ari.

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"In all my actions, in fulfilling my ministerial duties and as a member of Knesset, I acted in an impartial way and in the interest of the public," Katz wrote in his resignation, which he sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Following Katz's resignation, Deputy Foreign Minister Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely – saying she hopes that Katz is able to clear his name – stated that she expected to be appointed to the post.

The Prime Minister's Office did not comment on her demand.

Katz, who will remain an MK, is expected to seek parliamentary immunity from the Knesset ahead of the September 17 election, but it is unclear whether his efforts will succeed.

The current Knesset, elected on April 9, was disbanded merely one month into its term and never staffed its committees, meaning that there is no House Committee to which Katz can appeal to for immunity, as the law requires.

According to the State Attorney's Office, the indictment against Katz centers on allegations that he advanced Amendment 44 to the Securities Law, stipulating that companies must repay bond debt to small bondholders before it repays controlling owners, at Ben Ari's request.

Katz had also been a suspect in a second, separate corruption investigation pertaining to his time as head of the Israel Aerospace Industries Workers' Union, a know Likud stronghold, but Mendelblit decided to close the case, citing insufficient evidence.

Responding to Mendelblit's decision, Katz's attorneys said that "relying on the generic crime of 'breach of trust' to indict him after no evidence of bribery could be established is a fundamental error in legal judgment."

Katz is one of four cabinet members facing potential criminal charges, together with Netanyahu, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri. Likud MK and former coalition whip David Bitan is also being investigated on possible bribery charges.

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Bennett and Feiglin reportedly sat down this week for a meeting that was characterized as "long and good," with the goal to establish a "technical bloc" that would be viable in the September election. The two parties would run on a joint list, and if the list passes the minimum threshold, will revert to their current status once the election is over.

Officials in the New Right are saying that last month, Bennett held a series of meetings with prominent figures in both in the political world and outside it. He used the meetings to help draw conclusions about his poor performance in April. Sources close to Bennett said that he will stick to the following principles: a united Right that is capable of governing; Israeli Jewishness that brings people closer together; a positive approach with minimal attacks and polarization; focus on the real issues; voter outreach; a modest, low-cost campaign; and deals with other parties to ensure a place in the next Knesset.

One of the people Bennett reportedly met with was New Right co-founder Ayelet Shaked, but it still appears that Shaked is looking to join the Likud rather than stay with Bennett.

"Bennett has realized a lot of things. Mainly, the need for a significant change to his public message – to take things in a cleaner, more unifying direction," his associates said.

Meanwhile, Feiglin's Zehut party is also reviewing the causes of its failure on April 9. One of the main lessons for party members was Feiglin's declaration that Zehut would not automatically join a coalition under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Feiglin said at the time, "We aren't in anyone's pocket. Not Netanyahu's, or [Blue and White leader Benny] Gantz's. We will join whoever gives us the most."

In the new campaign, Zehut will announce that it will join a right-wing government only. On Thursday, Feiglin said, "To a large extent, our avoiding saying 'We are right-wing' was our downfall. We are going to pave the way to allow our large sector of potential voters to cast their ballots for us, without concern that we'll establish a left-wing government."

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