Netanyahu presents reserved Likud candidates before list deadline

Update, 8 September, 23:08 Israel time

Netanyahu has now appeared alongside the reserved candidates at the Orient Hotel event, calling the additions a boost in strength, according to Ynet. In his statement he said another task remained, to bring down the government in Iran, and asked whether that would be done by those who had fought or by Gadi Eisenkot, who he said had wanted to withdraw from Gaza.

The Times of Israel reported that the prime minister named six candidates to reserved places, taking the number of his own appointees on the slate to nine, and that the presentation came hours before the deadline for parties to submit final candidate lists for the general election on October 27. The paper described the appointments as giving Netanyahu control over more than a third of Likud's realistic Knesset places, and said his speech framed the vote as a choice between what he called a strong national government and a narrow leftist government with the Arab parties. Its caption on the group photograph identifies Amir Avivi as having relinquished his place.

Ynet also published past remarks by three of the new candidates: Eli Goldschmidt, formerly a Labor member of the Knesset, once told Netanyahu he lacked the self-awareness to admit failure; Yaakov Bardugo has argued that the defence establishment was attempting a coup; and the lawyer David Peter said on Channel 14 that all the hostages had returned alive.

The story as first reported

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has named the people he is placing in reserved positions on Likud's list of Knesset candidates, a set of appointments that includes Channel 14 commentator Yaakov Bardugo and Talik Gvili, the mother of Ran Gvili. The Jerusalem Post reported that Bardugo and Gvili were among the names added to the slate by the party leader rather than chosen by Likud's members.

The full set of placements was published by the Israeli journalist Amit Segal and by the outlet News.co.il: Talik Gvili at 9, Bardugo at 11, Elisha Madan at 15, David Peter at 16, Eli Goldschmidt at 26, Itzik Buntzel at 29 and Amir Aviv at 35. News.co.il reported that the Likud secretariat subsequently approved Netanyahu's reserved slots.

What a reserved slot is

Israelis elect a parliament, the Knesset, through nationwide party lists rather than local constituencies. Voters choose a party, and seats are filled from the top of that party's list downward, so a candidate's ranking decides whether they enter parliament at all. Likud, the governing party led by Netanyahu, ranks most of its candidates through a primary vote of registered members.

Alongside that vote, the party leader holds a number of reserved places, known in Hebrew as shiryunim, literally armored or protected spots. These are slotted into fixed positions on the finished list, pushing primary winners down a rung and giving the leader a way to bring in figures who never faced the membership. The practice is long established in Israeli party politics and is regularly contested inside the parties themselves, because every reserved place displaces someone who campaigned for it.

Who was named

Talik Gvili is the mother of Ran Gvili, and Ynet reported that she is to be slotted in at 9. The Jerusalem Post described her as the mother of a slain hostage.

Yaakov Bardugo is a commentator on Channel 14, an Israeli television station widely identified with support for Netanyahu and his government. Ynet reported that the decision to place him at 11 followed disagreements among people around the prime minister.

Eli Goldschmidt is a former member of the Knesset. The Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, writing on X, noted that Goldschmidt once chaired the Labor faction and argued that Likud had become an outpost of Channel 14. Ravid also wrote that he had expected names such as Yossi Cohen, Ruvik Danilovich, Gabi Ashkenazi and Haim Bibas, rather than Bardugo and Amir Aviv.

Ynet reported that the announced placements also include a soldier who was critically wounded in Gaza and lost his legs, a researcher from the Kohelet Forum who represented the government before the High Court of Justice, and Itzik Buntzel, the father of Amit Buntzel, at 29. The Kohelet Forum is an Israeli conservative policy institute; the High Court of Justice, known in Hebrew as Bagatz, is the Supreme Court sitting as a body that hears petitions against state authorities.

A disagreement over Amir Aviv

The lists circulated by Amit Segal and by News.co.il both place Amir Aviv at 35. Ynet, in the same report, described Aviv, the founder of the group known as the Habitchonistim, or the Defenders, as having decided to give up the reserved slot. The reports do not reconcile these accounts, and it is not stated whether the published number reflects a placement that was later declined.

News.co.il also published what it presented as the Likud slate from 1 to 32, headed by Netanyahu, followed by Eli Cohen, Amir Ohana, Yariv Levin, Miri Regev, Israel Katz, Gideon Sa'ar and Ofir Katz, with the reserved names inserted at their listed positions. The same posting noted that Netanyahu moved a reserved placement to slot 16.

The event itself

News.co.il reported that Likud announced a media statement by Netanyahu together with the new reserved candidates at 19:00 at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem. Segal, commenting separately on the choices, wrote that the reserved placements show the prime minister has not yet settled the question of how elections are actually won.

What the reports do not say

The material does not give the total number of reserved slots available to the Likud leader, nor the rules governing them. It does not identify which of the named candidates is the wounded soldier or which is the Kohelet Forum researcher. It does not state the date of the election or of the party primary, and it does not give the size of the disagreements Ynet described around Netanyahu. Nor do the reports say how the displaced primary candidates responded, or whether the published slate beyond position 32 has been finalised.