T. Belman. Bennett is choosing between this government and a fifth election, not a Netanyahu government. Bibi wasn’t so right wing anyway. I like Bennett’s red lines. Not mentioned here is his dominance of who is picked for the Judiciary nor the government’s position on Biden’s policies and intentions. The question remains is how stable will it be given the reliance on Ra’am support.
Bennett’s said, ““We have red lines and we’ll uphold them. We won’t relinquish territory and we won’t harm the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.””
All Yamina MKs but one say they will back leader in joining bloc of parties seeking to oust Netanyahu; unapologetic Bennett insists coalition won’t be leftist
Today, 4:28 pm
Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett at a press conference in the Knesset, in Jerusalem on April 21, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Yamina leader Naftali Bennett told his party’s lawmakers Sunday that he intends to join with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid in forming a coalition, a move that, if completed in the next few days, would end more than 12 consecutive years of rule by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At a special faction meeting in Ra’anana, where he lives, Bennett updated Yamina MKs on developments in coalition talks over the past few days and explained to them why he was leading the party into the so-called “change bloc” of parties seeking to oust Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s Likud, in response, accused him of deceiving his voters and seeking to become prime minister at all costs.
With Bennett on board, and indeed set to serve first as prime minister in a tentative rotation agreement between them, Lapid and his improbable mix of anti-Netanyahu partners from across the political spectrum would appear to have enough Knesset support to oust Netanyahu. However, the possibility of lawmakers defecting or absenting themselves, combined with Israel’s fast-shifting current affairs, means that uncertainty will prevail until the Knesset approves a new government, with a vote on that not expected for several more days. The nascent coalition apparently has the support of 61 MKs in the 120-seat Knesset, so even a single defection could deprive it of a majority.
A statement from the Yamina party said Bennett updated lawmakers on the “events of recent days and his efforts to form a stable and functioning government.”
Yamina said the faction unanimously backed “his efforts to form a government and prevent fifth elections.”
Bennett is set to deliver a televised statement at 8 p.m. Sunday.
The meeting lasted less than an hour. During the discussion, Bennett admitted it would be easier for him to stay “in familiar territory” — meaning Netanyahu’s bloc of parties — but that to do so would only lead to fifth elections.
“How many times do we have to batter the state [with elections] in order to come to the realization that there can be no right-wing government?” he was quoted as saying by Channel 13 news. “Netanyahu doesn’t have a government — that’s a fact.”
What is taking shape with Lapid “is a national unity government of equal forces, and I don’t apologize,” he reportedly said. “I’m proud of our actions under these difficult circumstances. That’s what we’re about — taking responsibility… Bibi [Netanyahu] offered everything, with one exception: establishing a government.”
He added: “We have red lines and we’ll uphold them. We won’t relinquish territory and we won’t harm the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”
Yamina MK Amichai Chikli, who has vowed not to join a Lapid coalition, was not in attendance, meaning the decision was backed by six of the seven Yamina lawmakers, including Bennett and his longtime political partner, Ayelet Shaked.
File: Then-finance minister Yair Lapid (left) and then-economy minister Naftali Bennett at the Manufacturers Association of Israel annual general assembly at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, February 26, 2014. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash 90.)
Despite the statement saying the remaining six lawmakers would all support joining Lapid, MK Nir Orbach indicated in a WhatsApp post that he may resign from the Knesset rather than go along with the move.
Right-wing activists have been lobbying Yamina MKs not to join Lapid, and one wrote a message to Orbach earlier in the day imploring him to vote against such a coalition, Channel 12 reported. Orbach responded, “I won’t vote against. The option to resign exists.”
Though the report included a screen capture of the exchange, it did not say where the text messages were sent. Orbach resigning would not likely affect the potential Bennett-Lapid coalition arithmetic, since he would be replaced by an incoming Yamina MK, Shirley Pinto, who would back Bennett.
Lapid, who currently holds the mandate to form a government, is reportedly planning to visit President Reuven Rivlin on Monday to inform him he has succeeded in cobbling together a coalition.
The unlikely government would bring together parties from the right (Yamina, Yisrael Beytenu, New Hope), center (Yesh Atid, Blue and White) and left (Labor, Meretz), with support from the Arab Ra’am party (apparently from outside the coalition), in a unity government that would seek to extricate Israel from two years of political stagnation, spearhead the country’s recovery from coronavirus and heal societal rifts in a deeply divided nation.
The “change bloc,” with six of Yamina’s seven seats, numbers 57 MKs. Ra’am’s four MKs would hand it 61-seat support in the 120-member Knesset, allowing a government to be formed. Ra’am has not definitively committed to backing a Bennett-Lapid coalition.
Under the reported deal, Bennett would serve as prime minister for the government’s first two years, with Lapid replacing him for the final two.
Lapid’s mandate to form a government ends in three days. He has so far reached informal coalition agreements with Yisrael Beytenu, Meretz and Labor, and is hoping to seal deals with Blue and White and New Hope in the next few days.
Channel 12 reported that should he be ousted from the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu has no intention of resigning, and plans to lead the opposition while engaging in attacks against Yamina and intense efforts to break up the coalition along ideological lines.
If Lapid cannot build a majority by June 2, the Knesset would have 21 days to agree on a prime minister; otherwise, Israel would head to its fifth elections in two and a half years.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu made a last-ditch attempt to pry Bennett and New Hope party leader Gideon Sa’ar away from Lapid’s bloc, offering to rotate the prime minister’s seat with them if they joined him in a coalition. Sa’ar rejected the offer immediately, with Bennett’s response indicated by his remarks at his faction meeting.
Netanyahu has been in power since 2009, after an earlier term from 1996-9, but failed to win decisively in four elections since 2019, and his political future has been complicated by his indictment in three criminal cases.
After the first three inconclusive elections, Netanyahu finally convinced Blue and White’s Benny Gantz to join him in a power-sharing government in mid-2020. Netanyahu was to have served as prime minister for 18 months before handing the position over to Gantz in November 2021. However, late last year Likud and Blue and White’s government, dysfunctional since day one, fell apart over Netanyahu’s refusal to pass a two-year budget as had originally been agreed on between the sides.
The government’s collapse and Israel’s subsequent fourth election in two years this past March was widely seen as an attempt by Netanyahu to avoid honoring his deal with Gantz and to cement his hold on power by capitalizing on Israel’s successful vaccination campaign and normalization deals with several Arab countries.
Instead, the election ended with the Knesset mired in the same gridlock that followed the previous three votes.
The Likud party responded to Bennett statement Sunday by accusing him of being interested only in becoming prime minister and noted that earlier this month, amid a raging conflict with the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, Bennett had declared that he would not form a coalition with Lapid as it would require the support of Ra’am, which opposed Israel’s military campaign.
“Just a week later, even though nothing has changed, Bennett is rushing into a left-wing government under the pretext of preventing elections,” Likud tweeted.
“Now it has become clear that this pretext was just a means to distract the attention of the right,” Likud said and insisted that were Yamina to join Netanyahu’s bloc it would lead to the creation of a right-wing government, suggesting, contrary to Sa’ar’s repeated assertions to the contrary, that New Hope would follow.
“The only consistent thing for Bennett is to deceive his constituents and other right-wing voters, and to throw the ‘principles’ he talked about in the trash, all in order to be prime minister at any price,” the party said.
@ Ted Belman:
You are right, it was a lot to digest and I thank you for your input.
At this point anything should be done to stop this move by Bennett, though I do not believe Bibi will do it.
@ peloni1986:
That’s a lot to digest. My first thought is that Bennett, Sa’ar and Bibi were all competing for the same votes and Bibi got 70% of them. That tells you a lot. Bennett and Sa’ar should have accepted the result and fallen in line with the 70% majority.
Instead they choose to align with the opposition with a view to using their numbers to overcome Bibi’s dominance of the right. I think this was traitorous to the Zionist cause. At least Bennett would have stayed with Bibi if he had sufficient votes,. Saar and Lieberman made that impossible. Bennett, chose to align with them as a better option than a fifth election which in prospect offered no assurance of a better result.
I was prepared to go along with him if the new government which he would lead, yielded no Zionist ground. That appeared to be the case until he caved on the Bedouin issue. Bibi didn’t do anything about it for many years to my chagrin but he never conceded so much either.
A fifth election would have been far more preferable than then participation in this give away.
Having said all that, I was not happy with Bibi’s centrist policies. He held a tight reign on settlement construction, the nation state law, and the disempowerment of the Judges. He also did nothing to stop illegal Arab construction in Area C,
I still think or hope that Bibi will resign before its too late thereby enabling a right wing government.
@ Bear Klein:
Yes, Bear, you are correct. We have but little choice in the matter now as our trust was gifted with this past election among the many players who now stand upon the political board. Hence, our fate is now fixed with their empowered authority to adjudge our best interests with their dictates and decisions. And as bad a start as I see taking root here in so short a time, it may still lead to better or worse outcomes – we will have to wait as the fog of the contest clears more fully and greater transparency of our resulting future is elucidated. Sorry, if my rhetoric became too sharp, it does not often flow out that fast or unguarded.
@ peloni1986:
We will see what happens as what is happening in the media is that those pro Bibi and planting all sorts of horror stories and incitement to try and kill the Unity Coalition. So I will sit back and watch and find out what is true and what just an attempt to derail the unity coalition.
@ Bear Klein:
How can you quote him as “protecting the Jewish nature of the state” in the same moment that it is revealed he has ceded lands to the Bedouin. Since when is the stolen lands in the Negev not included in this Jewish nature context. He has given them the right to their stolen lands – which again bolsters the Muslim Brotherhood within the state! Yes, just trust him after he accepted Right-wing votes to create this Left-wing-Muslim-Brotherhood power-enterprise for himself which has just successfully made their first land capitulation to the Arabs. But trust them – based on what? How can you trust them when to stand upon these Redline props they propose as proof of their good intent when we all know it would call him to face the public’s wrath – which he and Shaked have both admitted they cannot do – and the Left and Abbass know all of this full well. I look to reason in politics and reserve my faith for religion and this practice has served me well. And reason tell me this their call to trust their good intent is beyond my simple arithmetic skills to countenance other than that they stand as poor investment for so recently betraying my trust and then re-informed my rationale to distrust them with this piece-of-land scheme as the first donative to the golden calf they have constructed as a powerbase for them and their many new friends. Trust? How can anyone trust them. They utilized a fake emergency to propose a standard of capture of the state in the grasp of our enemies. And while I trust you to your beliefs in them and I trust Ted with his beliefs in them, I will tell you plainly, they do not warrant this belief and I ask you to set aside your beliefs for it is not a belief system that will tell you the truth here due to beliefs often bearing fickled fruit. What does your reason tell you of this scheme. The product of my reasoning was so quickly rewarded with the support given in this first act of ceding this piece-of-land to their friends, our enemies. So, the Land-For-Piece is back and the Happy Dentist has opened a new front in this death-dealing scheme against us. Obama is going to love dealing with this new group.
I agree with Ted!
@ peloni1986:
Addendum to my note on Bennett’s and Saar’s great betrayal can be found in Arutz Sheva latest oped: The happy faced Muslim Brotherhood Dentist successfully comes up with a compromise of the Bedouin problem in the Negev – Let the Bedouin keep their pilfered winning. What a creative solution to decades of self-awarding thefts that Bibi, though he did resolve, at least did not reward them. This is the first of many gifts that will be the price to this Golden Calf that Bennet and Saar have built with Leftist-Muslim-Brotherhood Alliance. Let them speak to the truth of this betrayal. He should not do this!
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And it is not about Bibi, it never was and never should have been. It was / is / should always be about the safety of the state. They created this “Anyone But Bibi Syndrome” as a false emergency upon which to split the Right and empower the Left.
But there is no emergency at stake which calls for the state to be placed within the careful clutches of our enemies while trusting these Rebels of the Right and their Redlines. It is a game of semantics meant to disguise their only unstated goal – namely to steal a victory for the Left, at any cost, in the name of this false ploy of “Anyone-But-Bibi-Syndrome” – a victory that they were not afforded by the electorate to that was lied to and betrayed by both Bennett and Saar.
And these are the roguish charlatans that we should trust as the fate of the nation lies in the balance. Trust? Trust needs a fair basis and continued reinforcement to exist and thrive. Bennett’s and Saar’s most recent steps just after their reelection have been a betrayal of their trust/votes of their base . Too much ethereal good will, aka trust, aka hot air is asked to act as solid collateral and balance against all that we hold dear.
It is not enough collateral and too much lies at stake amid this proposed FAKE EMERGENCY OF STATE. Bibi may be well disliked, but any threat that he poses may not be rationally used to explain why we would place our trust in a gov’t dominated by Leftists and Muslim Brotherhood while being managed by two parties who most recent steps have betrayed the trust of their voters and clearly state they can not face them so near to this betrayal.
And these honest Leftists and lying Rightists are who should be allowed to face off against Obama’s 3rd term? I seem to be a minority voice upon this point, but I say it one more time for all the terrible reasons I state here: Bennett should not do this.
/3
(2 of 3)
And now, the plot hatched against Bibi in the name of “Anyone-But-Bibi-Syndrome” will leave the Jewish State and its strong Right-wing base dangling within the grasp of a Leftists-Muslim-Brotherhood dominated gov’t. Such a scenario recalls to mind a similar path chosen by such players as these in a not distant enough age where Leftists controlled by the Arabs were to decide our fate.
I recall how my own uncle argued with me about how Rabin would not allow Israel to be in any form of jeopardy, and yet the jeopardy birthed by Rabin gave rise to the creation of a terrible ocean of Jewish sacrifice to which our partners in peace continue to demand daily libations. This is the path behind us and it should inform us of the possible path before us.
And, ever true to form, such a path, as Reader has documented much evidence, is the road on which our international friends, such as they are, would love to see us splash our precious Jewish Blood upon once again. And we are to trust these men of the Right and their red lines.
Why are we even here at the precipice? There is no emergency that warrants this betrayal of the Right and their voters. Bennett and Shaked have both spoken of the fact they can ill afford to answer to the will of the public . We all know this. I do recall prior to his death it was stated that similar concerns kept Rabin from calling for elections.
And, yet, we are to trust that these ambitious men, who are the authors whose plots are resolved in creating this abomination, will fold their current project should red lines be crossed. My trust is not so easily won by young ambitious men whose rise is based solely upon their betrayals to the very base who elected them while nurturing self-imported ambitions and aggrandizing our enemies with the rewards of empowerment over us all.
And all of this while Iran is fed billions of US taxes to complete their Crescent about us. Many will call us to trust the great character and honest ideologues of Bennett and Saar, but what they do now is a betrayal of this very ideology and their many thousands of supporters, none of whom would sanction this move to rid the state of a loyal and largely unmarred leader by enacting this duplicitous and terrible plan to enfranchise the Left and raise high the Muslim Brotherhood.
/2
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Bennets Redlines remind me of the prop that Obama triffled with as a distraction to the miserable charade that doubled as his foreign policy and served as coded-double-talk as he enabled and supported Iran’s move towards a nuclear bomb. And meanwhile the “Anyone-But-Bibi-Syndrome” serves as a great emergency threatening the state by this roguish politician.
It has many looking with glee upon this terrible cancer which has been cultured by the Left to place the Right in the wind despite their massive support within the populace. But it would seem, should all things be as they unfortunately appear to be, that the electorate has chosen men of such fickle character and wanton ambition that they would prefer to use the artifice of this Anyone-But-Bibi-Syndrome ruse to lead the nation towards the confines of a precarious trap – a Zionist nation led by non-Zionists and a Jewish State under the watchful eye of the Muslim Brotherhood.
These two men hold their own ambitions to be greater than the Right-wing philosophy that they claim to champion, as we see they have chosen to displace 45 members of their own while raising high as many opposition MKs, who knowingly stand in full opposition to everything we on the Right hold dear and vital in life and to the State’s future.
We stand upon a precipice of history and should the wrong step be placed, the unique balance upon Terra Firma that was maintained under Bibi’s leadership may easily be lost and never regained. It is true, his nimble abilities led to make allies of enemies so that we could face an enemy who led our ally, and only because of Bibi we won against terrible odds with a later windfall of gaining a great peace.
But Bibi did not do this alone, though it was his role that made the success certain, and all who championed support of these successes are now to be in opposition while those who antagonized such efforts are now set to rise to power. It has been stated as a fair charge that Bibi was not so Right-wing, but rigid, dogmatic stances will often afford their own weaknesses when seeking a greater goal and that goal was our survival.
Bibi’s skills have led the nation with such successes while the Leftists have continued to exposed their poorly based ideology for the folly that it will always portend. It is claimed that Churchill said you have no heart if under 30yo you are not a liberal while you have no brain if over 30 you are not a conservative.
So, with this phrase in mind, it may be said that Israel has indeed had its liberal period and paid dearly for the expertise to move cautiously but steadfastly to the Right amid many tragic events. Such difficulties were borne by Bibi both at home and abroad – both thru international schemes that were much supported by Bennett’s recently gained friends, as well as personal legal challenges that were also championed by these new MKs who are to be within Bennett’s new sphere of influence.
/1
https://www.timesofisrael.com/planned-lapid-bennet-security-cabinet-would-have-right-wing-majority/
I hope this will make some people feel better.
@ Edgar G.:
You’re absolutely right. Bennett is a piece of shit.
The mortal danger is the creation of the “Palestinian” state on 70% of Judea and Samaria and in Gazar sharing its borders with Israel and with both the West Bank and Gaza connected by a strip which will cut Israel in half East to West.
Please. read my posts which show a pattern after the ceasefire of the international efforts aimed toward this kind of a “solution to the Jewish Question”, including by “our best friends and allies”:
https://www.israpundit.org/biden-to-netanyahu-wind-down-bombardment-of-gaza/
Netanyahu would sign off on this.
Will Bennett?
I certainly hope not.
Some people will argue that the Arabs don’t want the two-state solution.
Actually, they want it very much but ONLY as a step toward annihilating Israel (God forbid).
I am sure that the only way out of this predicament for Israel is an immediate and HUGE ALIYAH, such as in the early 1990s or even bigger, to settle the rest of Israel’s territory.
@ adamdalgliesh:
They’ll get the “joint List” to make up the difference..if they have enough seats.
My admittedly imperfect understanding is that if Lapid as handed the baton, for Bennett to become PM Lapid has to hand it back, and perhaps; recommend Bennett. But Rivlin specifically said that if Lapid couldn’t put together a govt. it would go straight to the Knesset. So we are in the usual very swampy ground of Israeli politics, where they can change directon better tahn a good rugby 3/4 back.
I’ve also read somewhere that Lapid is to be PM and Bennett Defence Mnister.
Gae Freggem..?
@ Bear Klein:
Speak Shmeak..What the hell difference does it make what a politician SAYS…. It’s what he DOES that means everything. And now we’ve seen what Bennett DOES.
All you pseudo political mavens know from nothing. I also don’t know, but one thing. The people voted for a right Wing Govt. Israel desperately NEEDS a right wing govt. And it gets a Left Wing cobbled together mish-mash “headed” by a guy who has 7 seats, a couple of which are not willing but just being “loyal”. and held together by 4 Arabs who cheered and celebrated when Jews were being killed by rockets from Gaza…..
You don’t see the enormous tragedy which has just occurred. Bennett wasn’t just 2-faced, he was 4-faced. Doing it for the good of the country,like Netanyahu has to do, is one thing, but doing it for personal aggrandisement is another, and despicable.
Just as we voted for Trump and were cheated, the Israelis voted for a right wing government and are being robbed of their votes.
I liked Bennett’s speech when he spoke about in a positive tone looking forward.
In contrast Bibi spoke later it was scare mongering and negative.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-government-for-the-people-analysis-669648
There might perhaps be some hope for Israel in a legal technicality. President Rivlin gave the mandate to form a new government to Lapid, not Bennet. Can Lapid then form a government in which Bennet, and not himself, is Prime Minister? The legality of this when Bennet was not given the mandate to form a new government seems to be to be extremely dubious. But presumably Rivlin will OK it.
Other possible straws to grasp at :according to the Jerusalem Post Yariv Levin, who is acting speaker of the Knesset, has the legal right to delay the inauguration of a new government for up to a week. That could allow a few days for the constant bickering that plagues Israeli politics to cause the coalition to fall apart. However, Levin has promised not to engage in any such “tricks,” making this hope forlorn, since Levin unlike the others is an honest man.
A situation somewhat similar to this one occurred in England way back in 1931. Ramsay Macdonald was elected as prime minister as leader of the Labor party in 1929. But in 1931 he and a few of his ministers walked out of the Labor party and instead formed a coalition government with the Conservatives. The Labor party held a convention that voted to expel MacDonald from the party. MacDonald called a new election, and the voters gave the coalition between the Conservatives, MacDonald, and his few “dissident” Labor supporters an overwhelming majority of the votes.
MacDonald remained as Prime Minister for the next four years, but had no real power. That power was in the hands of the Conservative ministers, who ran the government while MacDonald presided at cabinet meetings as the titular Prime Minister.
When the next parliamentary election was held in 1935, the Conservatives won again. Macdonald was replaced as Prime Minister by a Conservative leader, Stanley Baldwin. MacDonald’s ex-Labor colleagues were also dumped. MacDonald retired from politics, and little was heard from him by the public for the rest of his life.
I think Bennet’s career will follow a similar trajectory to Macdonald’s. The voters who supported him in previous elections will all desert him when the next election is held. He will then have to retire from politics.
Another disaster is that Isaac Herzog, a longtime leader of the Labor party and a hardcore leftist, is about to be elected president of the republic with Yamina’s support. That positions him to act as kingmaker if there is any future government crisis.
The government will be dominated by an overwhelming majority of leftists, including the extreme-left Meretz party. It will also require the support of the Islamist Ra’am, a longtime supporter of Hamas.
One possible area of hope is that Bennett may feel obliged to resign after a brief time in office if the government does not support his policies.My very imperfect understanding of Israeli law on this point is that if Bennet resigns and all seven Yamina people withdraw their support for the government, and if no on else is able to put together a majority for a new government, then new elections must be held. If ministers other than the prime minister resign, but he does not resign, then he remains in office until the next required election.
If Bennet has any principles left at all, he will resign after serving a brief term as prime minister, if his fellow ministers insist on appeasing Hamas, the PLO,Iran, Hizbollah, Syria, etc. At this point it is hard to know if he has any principles left.
Bennett just finished his short but elegant speech on TV.
He intends to form unity government his his close friend Lapid.
He says the choice is not between right wing government and unity government but between fifth elections (which is not acceptable to the public and would not change anything) and a unity government.
He said Bibi’s last offer to bring Saar into a three way rotation would have been acceptable to him. However there is no trust that it would occur so it was not accepted by Saar.
He said whoever tells you that there is right-wing government with Bibi at the helm is lying to you.
I agree it should likely prove to be an unstable format, but as Ted pointed out and Shaked spoke of in her hot mic moment, Yamina and likely Saar have a great motivation to prevent a new round of elections at any cost. Also their many Leftist/non-Zionist/non-State-supporting members would also be greatly motivated to prevent a new election as their electoral support did not gain them their position in the gov’t, but rather a squabble among the right based on personalities – hence, these outiers would gain no seat at the table following such a happy occurrence as a new round of elections. Consequently, the question will come daily, or more often than that, to each member of this great gathering of disparate views as every point of governance is approached: “Is this point significant enough to be turned out of the gov’t, or perhaps the Knessett as well?” It basically comes down to the question of the basic principles of each of these men/women and how tightly any of them will be bound to these principles. The adherence to their principles will inversely define the length of this coalitions term, I believe. Considering this fact, I find this to be the most concerning prospect of this entire endeavor. Much will depend on whether the Joint List will support this gov’t(I read yesterday they might not join, but who knows) and whether the Heredi parties will support sooner or later. These supports would gain this Hodge-podge a greater latitude of allowing some members a moment of conscience while the gov’t maintains its threshold.
Ted asked,
That is for sure a serious question. My view is it will be very unstable.
So to have more of a possibility of stability one or both of the Haredi parties will have to be included eventually into the coalition or supporting it from the outside.