Opposition party leaders on Tuesday seized on the Likud primary results as campaign ammunition, attacking the party over responsibility for October 7, haredi influence, the loss of statesmanship, and the makeup of its electoral slate.
Within hours, the primary results had become campaign material for parties in the bloc opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Their leaders chose different lines of attack while also signaling which voter groups they hope to draw away from the Likud in the election.
Gadi Eisenkot appealed directly to disappointed Likud voters, Avigdor Liberman attacked haredi influence, Yair Lapid focused on the character of the party, and Yair Golan portrayed the slate as grounds for optimism in his own political camp.
Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot issued one of the harshest responses, calling the slate the "October 7 list."
"No celebratory announcement or 'victory' parties will hide" the fact that these are the same people who, he claimed, were part of the leadership that brought Israel to disaster.
Eisenkot also referred to "five members of the failure cabinet" who, he said, were there on the eve of the war, and argued that Likud members "enabled mass draft evasion during wartime."
He added that members of the slate "do not know how to lead Israel to victory," "cannot unite Israel," and "are not worthy of continuing to lead the country."
He concluded by appealing directly to Likud voters: "To Likudniks who have had enough of leadership built on lies and corruption, I want to say: You have a home."
Lapid targets Likud leadership, Liberman focuses on haredi influence
Opposition leader Yair Lapid chose a broader message about the character of the party. He wrote that in the past, he would congratulate Likud members before primaries and would also call those who lost.
"No more. Who am I supposed to call? Silman? Karhi? I don't have any friends left there," he wrote.
Lapid argued that even "the idea of normal relations between political rivals" had disappeared, saying that he even "misses the hypocrisy," referring to a period when, in his view, political rivals at least made an effort to maintain basic standards of discourse.
He linked the slate to October 7, corruption, the "disgraceful surrender to the haredim," and an effort "to trample democracy," concluding: "Likud needs a break from power."
The party, he said, should move into the opposition "for at least four years."
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman focused on haredi influence and the draft issue.
"It is clearer than ever: Likud = a haredi-lite party! A real Likudnik votes only Liberman," he wrote.
"The current Likud is haredi-lite. The people who decided the result were groups of haredim who do not vote Likud in the Knesset election," he said in a separate interview with 103FM.
Liberman linked this to what he called Netanyahu's "draft evaders' alliance" with Arye Deri and Yitzhak Goldknopf, and argued that Netanyahu also shaped the slate to prevent an internal opposition from emerging against him after the election.
Opposition parties compete for disaffected Likud voters
Naftali Bennett and Chili Tropper also targeted the same pool of voters from different angles, focusing on Israelis who serve and on the Likud's relationship with the haredi parties.
During the day of voting, Bennett argued that the Likud is "dependent on anti-Zionist parties," and is therefore, in his words, "committed to the draft evaders and abandoning those who serve."
Tropper told 104.5FM: "I wish the Likud would return to an alliance with those who serve, rather than with the draft evaders."
He called for the formation of a "Zionist government" that would not depend on either haredi or Arab parties.
Democrats chairman Yair Golan responded sarcastically. He ostensibly congratulated the Likud on an "excellent slate," adding that from his perspective, it was a slate "that guarantees the Likud's defeat and the victory of the democratic and liberal camp."
Golan attacked the composition of the slate, describing it as "a list of convicted criminals, suspects awaiting a decision by the State Attorney's Office, political operatives, TikTok loudmouths who have done nothing for the citizens of Israel or even for their own voters."
He concluded: "Good luck in the opposition."
Members of Golan's party also attacked the primary turnout. The Democrats had held their own primary in July, in which Naama Lazimi secured the second slot on the party list, and Gilad Kariv finished third.
Kariv wrote that "only half of Likud members bothered to vote in the Likud's corrupt primaries," arguing that "the free public has turned its back on the party of abandonment and draft evasion."
"This is what a party looks like when it has lost not only the trust of the broader public, but even that of its own members and registered party members," he wrote.
Lazimi noted that she herself received more votes in the Democrats' primary than the total number of voters who participated in the Likud primary.
She ended with a jab: "Go. We'll take it from here."
The attacks come as the opposition parties compete for position ahead of the election, with recent election polling showing Eisenkot's Yashar challenging Likud while the Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu also seek to increase their support.