"According to verified and confirmed information that has reached me in recent days, the Prime Minister Office has officially pledged to a number of countries in the European Union that Ben-Gvir will not be part of the next government. A clear message was conveyed to those countries, whether to their foreign ministers or to officials at an even higher level, that the prime minister does not intend to include me in the next government."
On Sunday, October 18, 2026, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, chairman of Otzma Yehudit, held a press conference in Jerusalem and made the claim quoted above, saying he spoke "with deep sorrow, after hearing such reports for a long time, but praying that they were not true," and that he was shocked. He added that Likud was trying to reduce Otzma Yehudit to five seats, that this "directly endangers right-wing rule," and issued a warning: "Ben-Gvir voters will not go out and vote for other parties. A strong Ben-Gvir is the hope and the reason hundreds of thousands of right-wing voters go out and vote." Likud responded the same day that he "continues with his false political spin and shooting from inside the armored personnel carrier," and said the opposite was true — that the Prime Minister had made clear any government will include the core partners of the current coalition and that every Zionist party will be invited to join. On Monday, October 19, at a campaign rally in Lod, Netanyahu gave the line quoted above, posted to social media in video. The precipitating facts are documented and sit in an eight-day run. On Tuesday, October 6, Likud announced a surplus vote-sharing agreement with Smotrich Religious Zionist Party, which has been polling just above the electoral threshold at around five seats; Otzma Yehudit said Likud had refused to sign one with it, and accused Likud of trying to weaken the party and keep Ben-Gvir out of a unity government Likud was planning with Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of Yashar and the opposition bloc leading candidate for prime minister. Eisenkot responded that "we do not interfere with how the draft-dodgers bloc divides up its votes." On Wednesday, October 7, it emerged that Ben-Gvir had been excluded from a right-wing mobilization convention titled Saving the Right; his party called the snub part of "a series of worrying signs." The convention was held Thursday, October 8, in Jerusalem, with Netanyahu and Smotrich appearing jointly before dozens of Religious Zionist rabbis and heads of yeshivas, Smotrich speaking of taking "the energy of the communities and institutions" into the election, and Netanyahu praising Smotrich and calling the coming together of the right "not only a matter of national honor — it is a matter of national survival." Ben-Gvir posted a photograph of Smotrich at that conference with the message "I love every Jew." On October 11 he spoke at a national youth conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. In August, Netanyahu had urged Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to run on a joint list and Ben-Gvir refused. On Monday, October 19, in a 103FM interview, Ben-Gvir said: "But I was your partner, I am your partner, I love you. Why do you have to go to all kinds of countries and tell them, without Ben-Gvir? It is personally hurtful; it is unpleasant. But I came here for the State of Israel. I entered politics to make changes, and you also encounter disappointments." The election is October 27.
Covered it as a feud, with a scoreboard. Ben-Gvir claims, Likud denies, Netanyahu reassures — three days, three stories, each written as the latest turn. The pattern across them was not reported. In thirty-six hours, Likud called a specific factual claim about diplomatic assurances to European governments false spin, and then the Prime Minister personally confirmed the thing the claim was about by promising Ben-Gvir a high-ranking ministry and using his party own word, spin, against his own party denial. Nobody asked the obvious question, which is the only one that matters eight days before a vote: if the claim was false spin on Sunday, what changed by Monday, and if nothing changed, which statement was for whom. Second, nobody tested the claim itself. Ben-Gvir said the Prime Minister Office gave an official pledge to several European Union states, conveyed to foreign ministers or higher, that he would be excluded from the next government. That is a checkable assertion about diplomatic communications with named categories of recipients. Not one outlet reported asking a single EU foreign ministry whether such an assurance was received. The story was framed entirely as whether Ben-Gvir feels hurt. Third, the arithmetic. The surplus-vote agreement, the convention exclusion and the five-seat squeeze are all about one threshold. Religious Zionism polls just above it; Otzma Yehudit is being pressed toward it; a bloc that loses a party below the threshold loses those votes entirely. The coverage treated the snubs as social and the threat as temperament, when the warning Ben-Gvir issued was that his voters stay home, which is the only mechanism by which any of it decides the election.
The Israeli thread in this file has been about what gets buried under a quotable line. Entry #24 — the landlords video. Entry #25 — Herzog saying it is forbidden to abuse prisoners while Ben-Gvir ran the prisons. Entry #51 — pack suitcases, with a twenty-page plan, a budget and targets underneath it. Entry #67 — masters of the Temple Mount on the front page and an inventory of administrative changes underneath. Entry #72, thirteen days ago — Smotrich asking for permanent sovereignty in Gaza and Lebanon from a printed conference program while the world ran four words about racism. This entry is the first in that sequence where the buried thing is not a policy but the government own composition. Three weeks before the vote the Finance Minister described permanent annexation as settled doctrine from a scheduled keynote and received a surplus-vote deal. One week before the vote the National Security Minister, excluded from the deal and from the convention, said in public that his own Prime Minister had promised European capitals he would be gone, was called a liar by his own bloc, and was then promised a senior ministry from a rally stage in Lod. Both ministers are describing the same coalition. One of them was told he is essential and one of them was told not to buy the spin, by the same office, within a week, and the record of which promise was made to whom now exists in two languages — one for Jerusalem and, if Ben-Gvir is right, another for Brussels.