Has Netanyahu outsmarted himself in push for right-wing merger?

Less than three hours after Labor-Gesher and Meretz announced that they will run on a joint ticket in the March 2 Knesset elections, the co-leaders of the New Right, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett and former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, announced that their party will run independently, rejecting a merger with other parties on the political right. According to a Channel 13 news report on Jan. 13, their decision angered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pretty much dictated every move on the right for the past year.

As a reminder, ahead of the April 2019 elections, after Bennett and Shaked broke from HaBayit HaYehudi to form the New Right, Netanyahu urged the new leader of their former party, Rabbi Rafi Peretz, to join with Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), the party founded by the fascist disciples of Rabbi Meir Kahane and long ostracized for its racist views. Netanyahu’s goal was to ensure sufficient support for HaBayit HaYehudi to make it into the Knesset. In fact, the prime minister was the one who paved the way for the abomination of Otzma Yehudit's rehabilitation. Denunciations in Israel and elsewhere, even by his friends and allies at the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby in Washington, failed to sway Netanyahu from his efforts. For him, every vote was kosher, and all means were justified in achieving the end of maintaining power.