Bayit HaYehudi leader MK Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid on Monday 8 Adar 5773 released statements pertaining to the ongoing coalition talks. The two signed a deal by which they will either enter the coalition together or both remain in opposition, committed to act as a unit with their combined 31 seats.
Bennett said “There is no significant negotiating going on at present. Bayit HaYehudi has time but the nation doesn’t have time to waste. Whenever they decide to engage in serious negotiations with us we can close a deal within 24 hours.”
Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid added, “Whenever Netanyahu will decide just what the values of the coalition will be we can then know which parties will be included.”
The two feel Likud/Beitenu is to blame for they have not been called in for serious talks for days. They feel time is wasting, precious time that should be used to assemble a coalition.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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Bennet prefers Lapid to do the heavy lifting, then he can lift up his feet and say “look I’m kosher”
Lapid: Entering Gov’t with Shas will End My Career
Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi chairmen have reportedly decided to stick together no matter what.
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid is reportedly steadfast in his position against joining a coalition that includes Shas and United Torah Judaism, the Sephardic and Ashkenazi hareidi parties.
According to Channel 10, Lapid said, “I do not even have a dilemma regarding entering a government with Shas.”
“If, on the day of the government’s swearing-in, I am photographed in the Presidential Residence with a Shas minister standing next to me, I will have ended my political career,” he reportedly added.
A S learned Wednesday that Lapid and Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett have agreed to stick together no matter what happens – even if it means that they wind up in the Opposition. The two party leaders noted that combined, their parties total 31 MKs – precisely the number of MKs that Likud / Yisrael Beytenu has. That is why they are negotiating with Netanyahu as a single bloc.
Channel 10 also reported that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes Bennett will agree to join his coalition without Lapid, once he realizes that Netanyahu is unable to form a government and that there is a danger that President Shimon Peres will ask Lapid or someone else to form a coalition instead of Netanyahu.
If Bennett is under pressure from within Bayit Yehudi not to side with Lapid against the hareidi parties, he is not showing it. Bennett’s pact with Lapid could be real, or he could simply be playing political poker with Netanyahu, forcing Netanyahu to make him a very generous offer in order to get him to join the coalition without Lapid.
The hareidi parties are considered “natural” coalition partners for Netanyahu, since they fit in well with the concept of religious right wing bloc, do not pose a threat to his leadership and do not have serious demands regarding security policy and diplomacy. A coalition with Yesh Atid might involve taking harsh steps to force hareidi men into the military, and this could cause long-term alienation between Likud Beytenu and the hareidi parties.
Leave them out to rot!! All he needs to replace them is Labour, and the haredim already said they were comfortable to sit with them
Bennett will get what he deserves for working against the Torah hashem is in control no matter what these reshaim think
Torahs worst enemy is Bennet, who comes across like a Tzaddik. He loves the Torah Jews as a little subservient tribe, and hates them as an equal partner.
“Torahs worst enemy is Bennet, who comes across like a Tzaddik. He loves the Torah Jews as a little subservient tribe, and hates them as an equal partner.”
Replace the name Bennett with any of the UTJ and Shas MKs and the above statement becomes true.