The Israeli media widely reported Shaked's efforts to return to Likud before the September election. Netanyahu rebuffed her. That may be in part because he fears she could be a major challenger for his Likud crown were she to gain a foothold.
Gurvitz observed that Netanyahu was involved in a "difficult dance" with the settler parties for votes.
"He needs their votes to ensure he can form a government, but he doesn't want them so strong that they can dictate terms to him," he said.
Gurvitz believed that, with the United Right now certain to pass the threshold, Netanyahu would seek to steal votes from them in the final stages of the election, as he has done before.
The fact that Likud and the United Right compete for largely the same pool of voters had fuelled even more extremist positions on the right, he added.
"The national-religious parties need to offer more extreme policies to distinguish themselves from Likud, otherwise they will lose votes to Netanyahu," he said.
"But that then encourages Netanyahu to take more extreme positions to ensure he doesn't look less nationalist than his rivals. It ends up creating a spiral of extremism."
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