Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, looking for a way to gain a ruling majority, met with Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett on Thursday night in the first session between the two since the prime minister was tasked with forming a coalition. .
The meeting, which began at 20:30, was held in the office of the Prime Minister in Balfour Street in Jerusalem. After the meeting, Netanyahu’s Likud and Yamina parties from Bennett issued a joint statement saying that there was a ‘positive atmosphere’ and that the two men would meet again.
It was the first time Bennett had been allowed into the complex in more than a decade, due to past tensions between him and Netanyahu. The prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, has reportedly vetoed Bennett’s entry for some time. But now Netanyahu is dependent on Bennett’s support if he wants to live up to his hopes of forming a government.
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Netanyahu, in consultation with President Reuven Rivlin on Monday, received the approval of representatives of 52 legislatures, most of any candidate but less than a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Yamina, with seven seats, recommended Bennett as prime minister, the only party to do so. Yair Lapid leader Yesh Atid received 45 signatures. New Hope, Ra’am and the Joint List, with 16 seats between them, did not recommend any candidate for prime minister. A reluctant Rivlin on Tuesday ordered Netanyahu to form a government.
Bennett said on Tuesday he was open to talks with Likud and asked for a right-wing government, but did not commit to supporting Netanyahu. Even with Yamina’s support, Netanyahu’s bloc will still be two seats short of a majority, with limited options.
Party leaders present themselves for a group photo after the swearing-in ceremony of the 24th Knesset, April 6, 2021. From left, President of the Supreme Court Esther Hayut, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin (Marc Israel Sellem / POOL)
Bennett spoke to reporters before entering the prime minister’s residence, saying he was committed to forming a government and avoiding new elections.
“I come here with great benevolence and promise to do everything in my power to save Israel from chaos and to establish a good government for the state of Israel,” Bennett said. “It’s time for national responsibility.”
Since Netanyahu had the task of forming a government, he has met the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, both of which endorsed him.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and then Education Minister Naftali Bennett during a Knesset vote on 21 December 2016. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
Before Thursday’s meeting with Bennett, Netanyahu met with MK Bezalel Smotrich, whose far-right party of Religious Zionism strongly linked him to the prime minister. However, it also said it would not sit in a coalition backed by the Islamic Ra’am party, the only apparent option Netanyahu has left, with all others excluded from joining his coalition.
He told United Torah Judaism No. 1 on Wednesday before meeting with Netanyahu. 2. Yaakov Litzman alludes to the possibility that Religious Zionism may officially remain outside the government while supporting it from the outside, not to be part of a coalition that is dependent on Arab Israeli parties. .
Party leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, at the party headquarters in Modi’in, on election night, March 23, 2021. (Sraya Diamant / Flash90)
But in a Thursday night interview before meeting with Netanyahu, Smotrich said it was dangerous to form a government that relied on “the Arabs”.
“My goal is to be a right-wing government. “A government with Arabs will not be able to do anything right,” Smotrich told Radio 103. Do you think Bibi will succeed in launching an operation in Gaza if there is a government with Abbas? “You do not understand what it means to be a hostage,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
Channel 12 News reported on Thursday that one option Netanyahu is considering is trying to convince Smotrich and Ra’am to come together for just one vote: form a coalition that will then fall immediately and the country after its fifth election in 2 , 5 years sending.
This would nullify the current coalition agreement, giving Benny Gantz’s Blue and White and his bloc 50 percent control over the government and a veto on critical matters. Perhaps more importantly, it would remove the threat that Gantz would replace Netanyahu as prime minister on November 17, which would automatically happen if no new coalition was formed yet.
Despite Shas and UTJ’s public support, television reports said in their meeting with Netanyahu that they would not go with him to the fifth election.
The Haredi parties took note of Bennett’s possible options to form a government and predicted, according to the Kan public broadcaster, that he would not leave the opportunity to be prime minister.
Ahead of Bennett’s meeting with Netanyahu, the network on Thursday quoted an official in the ultra-Orthodox parties as telling the Yamina party leader that they would consider joining Netanyahu’s Likud if the status quo on religious matters was maintained. word.
The parties will reportedly consider the option if Bennett succeeds in securing a government with secularist Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman that the current state of affairs regarding religion and state will not change.
However, a report on Channel 12 News on Wednesday said that the ultra-Orthodox parties had asked Netanyahu to do everything possible to prevent the formation of a government that would turn off Bennett and Lapid as prime minister. Lapid and the Haredi parties have long been in a battle over the support of the head of Yesh Atid to institute core curriculum studies in ultra-Orthodox schools and to end the compulsory military service exemptions for seminary students.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joins fellow MKs during the swearing-in ceremony of the 24th Knesset, 6 April 2021. (Alex Kolomoisky / POOL)
While Lapid received significantly more endorsements than Bennett, and his party has 17 seats for Yamina’s seven, he revealed on Tuesday that he had offered Bennett to first serve as prime minister in a rotating government. In apparent reaction to Lapid, Bennett said he would not head a left-wing coalition or abandon his principles.
New Hope, which is campaigning for the replacement of Netanyahu as prime minister, has also expressed support for a power-sharing agreement between Bennett and Lapid.
But throwing cold water on the idea that the joint list could support such an outside coalition, Ayman Odeh, chairman of the joint list, said Thursday night that he would not support a government led by Bennett.
“We will not agree under any circumstances to support or allow the formation of a government led by Naftali Bennett,” Odeh told Arab Radio Nas.
“We will not replace one racist with another racist,” he said.
If Netanyahu fails to form a government, the president can order a second person (for another 28 days and a possible additional 14), or return the mandate to the Knesset and the legislature. 21 days to vote on a candidate supported by 61 MKs.
If the president appoints a second person and the person does not form a coalition, the mandate automatically returns to the Knesset for a period of 21 days. During that time, any MK may be eligible to form a government.
Rivlin has indicated that he may not give the mandate to a second candidate if Netanyahu fails, but will immediately send it back to the Knesset.
At the end of the 21-day period, if 61 MKs do not vote on any candidate, the new Knesset will automatically go out and leave the country after another election, the fifth in less than three years.
Neither the pro- nor anti-Netanyahu bloc currently has a clear path to a coalition majority.