‘We’ll have 61 seats without Netanyahu, Dery or Litzman,’ kingmaker in previous elections says of chance to build a coalition after the March 2 vote
HAARETZ
Tomer Appelbaum
Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, who emerged as kingmaker in Israel’s two previous elections this year, said on Wednesday that he is ruling out the possibility of forming a unity government with Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud after the March 2 ballot.
Speaking at the Ma’ariv Business Conference 2030 in Herzliya, Lieberman said: “Gantz and Netanyahu together reached 65 seats [in the last election], and I told them to form a government, but they preferred to argue over who would be first and who would be second,” Lieberman said.
“There is no more unity government. It’s clear that nothing can be built with those two, so we’re preparing ourselves,” the former defense chief added. “We’re ready for the day after the election. We will have 61 Knesset seats without Netanyahu, Dery and Litzman,” referring to the heads of the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism.
The most recent poll conducted by Channel 13 News shows Netanyahu’s Likud leading with 33 seats, one seat ahead of Kahol Lavan’s 32 seats. The poll showed Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu garnering eight seats. Surveys do not indicate a clear path to a 61-seat majority for either the right or center-left blocks.
Last week, Lieberman said that Netanyahu “can no longer be prime minister” as far as he’s concerned.
Lieberman categorically ruled out that his party would recommend to President Reuven Rivlin that Netanyahu be tasked with forming a government after the general election. He did note, however, that he “would very much like to see Netanyahu’s Likud as one of the parties forming the next governing coalition.”
Also on Wednesday, Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir said that his party will only drop out of the election if Netanyahu meets several demands by Friday. Ben-Gvir’s demands include the cancellation of the Oslo Accords, the promise not to establish a Palestinian state, halting the protection of Hamas, changing the composition of the Judicial Appointments Committee, and evacuating the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar.
Yaakov Katz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, has a new editorial entitled “will Israel’s Third Elections be the Last,” dated February 28 (https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Will-Israels-third-elections-be-the-last-619112), in which he lambastes Netanyahu for his frequent denunciations of theArab Joint List parties, and his warnings that if Blue-White wins the election, the Arab parties will become part of the government. In Katz’s view, this is “demonizing” Israel’s Arab minority. The Arabs are nearly one fourth of Israel’s population, he maintains, and as such are entitled to be represented proportionately to their population in the government, not treated as second-class citizens. Katz even compares Netanyau’s attacks on the Joint List parties to Hitler’s demonizing of the Jews.
Katz never mentions that two of the Jooint List parties support Fatah, and the third, Balad, supports Hamas. In effect, he urges the Israeli government to include representatives of theseorganizatiwons in it, even thoughare waging a terror war against Israel, and have been for many years.
Woe to Israel that its most widely read newspaper abroad has become little more than a mouthpiece for Israel’s enemies. The Jerusalem Post has become as bad as Haaretz.
Israel is threatened not only be numerous external enemies, but by a huge internal fifth column. And the most deadly elements in this fifth column are not Israeli Arabs, but deeply entrenched elements in Israel’s Jewish establishments, including the press.
This is Israel Hayom’s version, published this morning, of a conversation between Gantz’s campaign strategist Bahar and a Blue-White MK, Yankelovich:
“According to Channel 12, Bachar told Blue and White MK Omer Yankelevich, also considered a close associate of Gantz, that Gantz “Is an utter fool, he’s a total zero, and he mustn’t become prime minister.”
Yankelevich replies, “They will be a danger, I’ve already told you. Very great danger.”
Bachar responds by saying that Blue and White would stop the “right decision” to attack Iran.
“He [Gantz] doesn’t have the courage to attack in Iran,” Bachar says.”
“Poll: Likud – 33, Yamina – 9
Israel Hayom poll gives the right-wing 57 seats, compared to 56 seats for the left and Arabs.”
From Arutz Sheva, reporting a poll commissioned by Israel Hayom. Margin of error said to be 3 percent.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Sounds good. I read the same report and I thought it showed 2000 …but my eyes occasionally deceive me between a “9” and a “0”. The report also said that because of the much larger number of respondees, the error component would be 2%, not the 4+,which is general when the number of canvassed is about 5-600…..
The JPs’ analysis by Gil Hoffman theorizes that the polls are beginning to trend towards Netanyahu, not because people are enthusiastic about him, but that many who had been planning to vote for Blue-White have begun to feel that Israel needs an experienced and predictable leader, as a result of the Gaza situation and the coronavirus threat. Hoffman thinks that the public is beginning to become uncomfortable with the prospect of an untried leader with relatively little political experience, whose future policies are difficult to predict.
“Polls find Netanyahu edging toward 61-seat blocking majority.” A headline in today’s Jerusalem Post.”
@ adamdalgliesh:Look up a couple of posts to mine and you will see the results of the poll you are referencing.
The latest Direct Polls poll questioned about 2,900 voters, according to Jeremy’s Knesset Insider. This is more respondits than are questione by any of the other polling organizations. According to Jeremy, this means that its margin of error is less than the polls conducted by the other polling organizations. He gives the margin of error at 2%, while the othe polls, which each questioned about 500 prospective voters, have a margin of error of about 4.4 percent.
Th elatest Direct Polls poll gives the Right block 59 seats–possibly within striking distance of the 61 needed to form a Right.nationalist, government.
This is not a request that Israpundit republish any of Jeremy’s Knesset Insider poll reports.
Just a brief report on developments at the Jerusalem Post and Maariv. The JP has been running a regular weekly column by Ehud Olmert for aboout six weeks now. It has continued to publish his column even after he met publicly with Mahmoud Abbas to join him in opposition to the Trump plan at the UN headquarters. It published his defense of behavior, even though it also published over 200 criticisms of it in its comments section.
An editorials signed by “The editorial staff” about two weeks ago urged that the Joint List (ant-Zionist, pro-Fatah and pro=-Hamas parties).be included in the next Israeli government . About a week later, the Post published an op-ed column by its former editor-in-chief Jeff Barak (nee Black), also urging the next government to include members of parliament belonging to the Joint List. Ehud Olmert has also urged the Joint List’s inclusion in several of his JP columns. The JP first urged the inclusion of the joint list in Israel’s government before the December 1918 elections. It has reiterated this demand occasionally since then.
Olmert has endorsed Benny Gantz as next Prime Minister in his columns. He has denounced Netanyahu as a crook, despite his own convictions for bribery. He continues to claim to be innocent.
Speaking at a conference held by Maariv, the Jerusalem Post’s jointly owned “sister publication,” Maariv, Olmert urged Gantz to include the Joint list parties in his government if he is elected Israel’s next prime minister. He predicted this would happen. He said that he expected his criminal record to be “expunged” by the courts . and he looked forward to becoming the next editor of the Jerusalem Post.
My summary of Olmert’s remarks at the Maariv conference is based on a report in Arutz Sheva. I have not found a report on his remarks in the Jerusalem Post. I don’t know whether or what. Maariv reported Olmert’s remarks. Perhaps one of Israpundit’s Hebrew readers can report to us about this.
This comment is not a request that Israpundit republish any article.
What matters in polls is the trend lately the Right & Likud have been trending up a bit. The left down a bit. Likud is lately consistently the largest party by a bit over Blue/White. The right according to the poll below would have 59 Seats close but not yet a majority. The left (48) is far off because the Arab Joint List should be considered standalone. I am counting Liberman as part of the left along with Blue/White & Labor/Meretz/Gesher.
Right Block is bolded below
Lahav Harkov
@LahavHarkov
Final polls on tv will be in a couple of hours, but here’s one from Direct Polls: