Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told supporters that there is “a tremendous effort, worldwide, to topple” him as Israelis head to the polls next week, according to an audiotape broadcast Tuesday, March 10, on Army Radio.

Little context was provided for the 12-second clip of Netanyahu, speaking to activists in his Likud Party. But it came after weeks in which his supporters have accused President Obama of meddling in Israeli politics because a top strategist from Obama’s campaigns is advising a Tel Aviv group whose goal is to replace the current government, the New York Times says.

Netanyahu, in turn, has been criticized in Israel and abroad for interfering in American politics by speaking about the Iranian nuclear program last week in Congress at the invitation of the speaker of the House, a Republican, and against the wishes of the White House.

The Prime Minister said during a visit to an Israeli military headquarters in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday that since that speech, “I get the impression that there are more and more voices, especially in the U.S. but also in other places, that support Israel’s position.”

A week before the elections, polls show the rightist Likud neck-and-neck with the center-left Zionist Union, and both camps are vying to pull votes from smaller parties and win over an unusually large pool that remains undecided. “The battle is very close, nothing is guaranteed,” Netanyahu told his party activists Monday. “It is not guaranteed because there is a tremendous effort, worldwide, to topple the Likud government.”

Rafi Smith, a leading Israeli pollster, said Tuesday that the dynamics of the campaign had shifted in recent weeks, with a growing margin of voters calling for change even as the largest group sees Netanyahu as best suited for the top job. By creating the Zionist Union, Smith told a group of international journalists, Isaac Herzog of the Labor Party and Tzipi Livni of the small Hatnua faction “changed the atmosphere” from the last election, in 2013, when Netanyahu’s re-election was never in doubt.

“The main difference in this election is that we’re actually asking who is going to be prime minister of Israel,” he said. “In 2013, that was not the question. It was who was going to join Netanyahu in the coalition.”

Netanyahu made a rare, unpublicized campaign stop Monday at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, and on Tuesday gave a 35-minute interview to a small radio and television station in which he spoke mainly about Iran. In a sign of Herzog’s growing strength, Netanyahu focused his attacks on Livni, who is less popular, and under the Zionist Union agreement would rotate the premiership with Herzog.

“Anyone who stays home is ensuring that Tzipi Livni, who is a candidate for prime minister, will be prime minister,” Netanyahu said, according to NYT.

He also dismissed talk of uniting in a coalition with Zionist Union, which he said “contains activist elements that can only be called anti-Zionist.”

Herzog himself provided the response, saying on Israel Radio’s noon magazine that “Netanyahu is feeling pressured” and “shooting in all directions, making false accusations.”

The Zionist Union has hardly mentioned the rotation agreement with Livni since its formation, and on Tuesday Herzog kept the focus on himself.

“I will replace him and I will form the next government,” Herzog said on the radio.

“I want to make it clear: I’m here to beat Netanyahu and send him home,” Herzog said. “If we are big enough,” he added in an attempt to pull people away from other center-left parties, “then we’ll be able to put together a normal coalition.”