T. Belman. I’m with Glick on this. Bennett should not accept this deal. A fifth election won’t solve anything other than to keep Netanyahu as PM for another few months. It is more likely, in my opinion that he will get less votes then.
Just because Shaked supports Bennett totally, doesn’t mean that they have decided to join Lapid.
The best outcome is that Netanyahu resigns to make way for a solid right wing coalition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not expected to return mandate early.
By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST APRIL 22, 2021
YESH ATID Party head Yair Lapid addresses a conference in Jerusalem last week.
President Reuven Rivlin will give Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid the mandate to form a government the day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mandate ends on May 4, sources close to Rivlin said on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s associates have admitted that he has given up on forming a government but said he does not intend to return the mandate early and take the advice of advisers who told him it would catch Lapid and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett unprepared.
“Whoever receives the most recommendations from the factions will receive the mandate,” said a source close to the president.
Rivlin will not invite every faction to the President’s Residence for consultations, but he will invite whichever factions have changed their recommendation since the first round to either visit him or call.
In the first round, Lapid received 45 recommendations and Netanyahu 52, so Rivlin gave Netanyahu the mandate. While it is possible that parties who supported Netanyahu last time will recommend Bennett, even those closest to Bennett said he does not believe he will receive more recommendations than Lapid.
Technically, Rivlin has the right to extend Netanyahu’s mandate by two weeks, but Rivlin’s associates said that would not happen, because the extension is only intended to give time for coalition negotiations, and there are no such talks taking place.
During the consultations, Rivlin noted that he did not have to give a second mandate. But his associates said he has since made up his mind that he would.
They noted that the reason he gave the mandate back to the Knesset after the last election was to bring Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz together, but they said there is no similar situation now.
Moreover, if the mandate is given to the Knesset, the support of 61 MKs would be needed to form a government, while a minority coalition backed from the outside by Ra’am (Joint Arab List) could be formed with Rivlin’s mandate.
In an effort to build a coalition as soon as possible, Lapid has been meeting with the heads of the parties that would join. On Thursday night, he met with Gantz.
Lapid has said he would enable Bennett to go first in a rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office. There have been disagreements between them over Bennett’s demand that the Right receive a disproportionate amount of portfolios to make up for the Center-Left’s numerical advantage in the coalition.
The coalition formed by Bennett and Lapid will include 58 MKs from their parties, Blue and White, Yisrael Beytenu, Labor, Meretz and New Hope. Lapid was set to meet United Torah Judaism leader Moshe Gafni on Monday in an effort to seek his support from outside the coalition, but the meeting was postponed for what they called technical reasons.
In a last-ditch effort to prevent the formation of such a government, pundits close to Netanyahu wrote Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked on social media on Thursday, urging her to defect to Netanyahu’s side. She rejected the overtures and reiterated that she was fully coordinated with Bennett.
@ peloni1986:
Yes, ovee the past 2-3 years Rivlin has taken actions and made comments which have caused commnetators to suggect that he’s “losing his marbles”.. It seems that every greedy and egoticst politican in Israel hates Netanyahu, and keep trying to pull him down, regardless of the massive peril Israel is always in, and now getting much worse. That Biden has revived the “2-State” Pollution, refunded both UNWRA and the PA is only the beginning, not to mention the Iran deal
I can only say that at a certain point, Jews become quite irrational and feed on one another, a la Josephus’ account of the contributing factors in the Destruction of Jerusalem. I can actually visualise it, and have done, on occasion over these many years. Josephus has alays fascinated me, and I’ve read his Wars, Against Aion, and His most descriptive and detailed book, Antiquities. There are several discrepancies in both Wars and Antiquities, but considering the whole…negligible.
Yes Bennett’s voracious ambitions are so patently visible that the threaten to swallow him up entirely. Both he and Shaked are betraying the Right, with Bennett, as you sa, of course, more guilty..
@ Edgar G.:
Yes, Rivlin did say that. He also previously said it was in the interest of the state and his tasks as president to reduce the role of tribalism so that a gov’t could be formed. That was not that long before he handed the mandate to Netanyahu and acknowledged that he was doing so grudgingly and suggested he looked forward to when he could pass it to someone else. Seems his memory is getting shorter and shorter. Could it be cognitive dysfunction? He is older, but I believe the only basis of his dysfunction of office here is that he has had a goal of unseating Netanyahu and believes the moment has arrived where he could play his part to bring down Caesar on the floor of the Senate, as it were.
As to your thoughts on Shaked, I entirely agree. But Bennett more so than Shaked. If they are successful in their move to lead this Leftist plot to unseat Netanyahu, I believe they will pay for their treachery with their future aspirations while the supporters of the Right will pay for it with the loss of yet another election and the fall of an enormously successful statesman brought low on charges of ice cream, cigars and Champaigne.
I saw in yesterday’s Arutz 7 -or the day before_ a Rivlin statement that he would NOT give the mandate to anyone after Netanyahu but to the Knesset.. So…….what’s he up to??
I am totally disappointed in Shaked and will never see her in the same light again.
@ DavidAJacobs: I agree with you in principle, David. My problem is that I don’t find Israel’s politicians, senior civil servants, lawyers and judges very lovable. They havebetrayed the Jewish peoplewith their senseless vendettas against each other. And some have collaborated with
Israel’s enemies by obstructing Jewish settlement activity, engaging in anti-Israel propaganda, somtimes in foreign countries whose support Israel needs, and unfairly prosecuting some individuals because they disapproved of their pro-settlement opinions.
Israel badly needs more patriotic and fair-minded government officials than what we have now. I pray every day that Israel will be blessed with more qualified leaders. I wish no harm of grief the present ruling class (for lack of a better term), but I do wish they would take earlier retirement.
After 4 failed elections, how many out there will wake up and see that Hashem is sending a clear message? How many do-overs do you need, folks? Prepare yourselves – do t’shuva as best you can, love your fellow Jew and stop the Lashon Hara.