Last week, former soccer star Eli Ohana received a phone call from someone close to HaBayit HaYehudi Party head Naftali Bennett, who approached him with a surprising offer. This intermediary offered Ohana a safe position on the party’s list for the 20th Knesset. Ohana, who now works as a sports commentator and coach of Israel’s all-star youth soccer team, told him that there was something to talk about. From there, things gathered momentum. On Jan. 26, Ohana paid Bennett a visit in his expansive home in Raanana for an initial meeting. The two of them agreed that Ohana would join HaBayit HaYehudi, and that he would be given the No. 10 “safe spot” on the list.
Bennett has been worried about his party’s radical right-wing religious image, ever since HaBayit HaYehudi held its primaries Jan. 14. He had hoped for a more secular list, thinking that it would be more attractive to Likud voters — those from the more moderate right and from the center-right, who were reluctant to support candidates like Knesset member Orit Strock and Housing Minister Uri Ariel.
