Blue and White chair Naftali Bennett has filed a police complaint against the governing Likud party after its official X account shared a “manipulated” image of him and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.
The ex-prime minister claimed that the picture was a “malicious forgery” ahead of the upcoming Israeli elections, in which he is widely tipped to be the main challenger to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The image in question showed both Bennett and Lapid hand in hand with the leaders of the Arab-Israeli Knesset parties, Hadash, Ra’am, Ta’al, and Balad.
קואליציית המשרתים pic.twitter.com/MdTigYbVkF
It was tweeted by Likud on January 22 with the caption “Coalition of the Servants”, and remains online at time of writing.
Those leaders did, indeed, meet last week, during which they agreed to resurrect the Joint List, an electoral alliance that existed between them from 2015 to 2019 and again from 2019 to 2022.
While Bennett has previously worked with Arab parties, most notably forming a coalition involving Ra’am in 2021 to unseat Netanyahu after 12 years in office, neither he nor Lapid was present at this meeting nor were they party to the Joint List deal.
A spokesperson for Bennett’s party, which is unnamed as yet, said: “The Bennett 2026 party has filed a police complaint against the Likud party for malicious forgery, regarding an edited and false photo that was published on the official account of the Likud party.
"The State of Israel is facing a fateful election campaign, and therefore, it is necessary to set red lines now.
"We will fight every attempt to produce fake news that poisons the discourse and divides the country.”
The JC has contacted the Government Press Office and Prime Minister’s Office for comment.
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