Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared victory over his chief challenger Issac Herzog in Tuesday's squeaker election in Israel, will triumph —even though it is too close to call, says Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
"I would say the last 44-48 hours were crucial here because Bibi started in a very intensive campaign with some scare tactics — that the Likud may lose the government and Arabs were going to take over — and it worked," Ayalon said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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Herzog, a left-center candidate with the Zionist Union party, was said to have been neck and neck with Netanyahu in the past week, with some polls saying he had a lead of one point or more.
Asked about a large foreign interest in getting Netanyahu ousted — including one group hiring President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign director to run a get-out-the-vote effort to defeat the prime minister — Ayalon said:
"Israelis like any other democratic society would not like to have any foreign interference. They feel that they own their future and they should take and make the decisions without anybody's influence.
"This is a lesson for the future for anyone who may try to meddle with the Israeli's domestic issues."
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