Bayit Yehudi leader says alliance with the Right in Likud would make it impossible for PM to make concessions to the Palestinians.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not have enough support to pass concessions to the Palestinians in the Knesset, according to a plan hatched by Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett.
Bennett intends to draft the support of enough MKs to block Netanyahu from adopting any of the proposals that are expected to be presented later this month by US Secretary of State John Kerry. He is obtaining the support of MKs in Likud Beytenu to prevent Netanyahu from replacing Bayit Yehudi in the coalition with Labor and Kadima.
“An alliance with the Right in Likud is an important mutual interest,” Bennett revealed in closed conversations.
“The goal is to torpedo any agreement and prevent deterioration to pre-1967 lines.”
While no MKs have signed any written commitment, Bennett is confident he will receive enough support from Likud Beytenu MKs to reject any possible agreement with the Palestinians by making it clear to Netanyahu that he would be left without a government.
“Bibi will realize he has no choice,” a source close to Bennett said.
Bennett’s No. 2 in Bayit Yehudi, Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel, ruled out any concessions Sunday, saying that from his point of view, there are three settlement blocs: Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
More than 200 right-wing activists met with Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely and other MKs in Ofra Sunday to strategize how to prevent concessions to the Palestinians. The activists vowed to pressure MKs not to support any steps that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.
“All indications are that the Americans intend to force an agreement on Israel that would endanger its security and its values,” Hotovely warned at the event. “Talk of keeping only settlement blocs is adopting the path of [former Meretz leader] Yossi Beilin and is a sin against the Right.
The way to stop such destructive plans is via the Likud and the coalition. The prime minister must understand that he will have no coalition and he will have no party if he accedes to a diplomatic agreement.”
ArnoldHarris Said:
I was referring to the way that Sharon was elected to implement a right wing platform and instead implemented a left wing platform and in order to do so he destroyed the right wing coalition. If BB is on the same path of destroying the right and allying with the left in order to implement the US program then I hope he is not as purposeful and successful as Sharon was.
ArnoldHarris Said:
He talks to the right but implements the left: Livni appointment, Levy report but no implementation,E1. If he chooses the US plan then he will have to do the same as Sharon: destroy the coalition take his likud supporters, create a new party and ally with the left OR throw out BY and bring in a left party. In either case he would implode the right after representing himself as on the right. I do not understand all the left wing moves he makes.
@ bernard ross:
BR, I did’t especially like Ariel Sharon, but he was a hell of a lot more purposeful than Netanyahu in pushing ahead with either or both his military campaigns and his political arrangements. Netanyahu, by comparison represents a lot of talk and little follow-through. I wish it were different, but I don’t think the Jewish state and the Jewish nation should put too much trust in him.
It’s times such as these that I wish for a 21st century Yitzchak Shamir or Yisrael Eldad, both of whom killed for the sake of Zion in an era when the Jewish nation needed just that toughness in the middle and late 1940s.
But if push comes to shove in the present government, do Bennett and his key friends in the cabinet and the Knesset in general have the muscle to break Netanyahu’s government, and do they have the balls to not cave in for anything short of victory?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
“The prime minister must understand that he will have no coalition and he will have no party if he accedes to a diplomatic agreement.”
Didn’t the same happen with sharon?