"Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah and Mashaal are watching the elections. They're only interested in one thing: Has the Prime Minister been strengthened or weakened?" Netanyahu told Ayala Hason on Channel 1, in first round of interviews since elections were announced.
Netanyahu also indicated that "the announcements on new building in the settlements and in E. Jerusalem are not part of the election campaign." The timing, he said, has to do with the Palestinians unilateral step at the UN. "All of the Israeli governments built in the Jewish neighborhoods of E. Jerusalem, and we are nothing different. But recently the Palestinians took a unilateral step, and I didn't think that in spite of that, we should sit with folded arms. So, yes! we are expending construction in Jerusalem," Netanyahu asserted.
Part of the interview as broadcast tonight on Channel 1's :