Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, currently in charge of forming a government, and Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett held a series of meetings with political leaders on Friday to form a unity government.
« The meetings were all held in a good mood and with a willingness to continue, » said a joint statement by the leaders of the « Change Bloc » after the talks.
A first meeting took place with the leader of the New Hope, Gideon Sa’ar. Yesh Atid said in a statement that the discussions that took place at Lapid in Tel Aviv « made positive progress ».
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Lapid and Bennett have been negotiating coalition terms over the past few weeks and are reported to have reached agreements in many areas. Yesh Atid’s chairman said he was ready to have Bennett admitted as prime minister in a rotation agreement.
After the meeting, Bennett met separately with Labor leader Merav Michaeli at their Tel Aviv home before he and Lapid met with blue and white boss Benny Gantz.
Michaeli’s partner, comedian Lior Schleien, pointed to a certain tension and tweeted: “The party chairman with six seats is trying to explain to the party chairman with seven seats why he should be prime minister and she should be agriculture minister. I miss the tap dancer who used to live in the apartment above me, he annoyed me less. »
Bennett and Lapid then met with Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz and Israel Beiteinu boss Avigdor Liberman.
The so-called « change bloc » of the parties that spoke out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to formulate laws that would enable a variety of factions to work together, the Haaretz daily reported.
With parties across the political spectrum agreeing to replace Netanyahu, the sides would likely have to make base agreements, Kan said public broadcaster.
« Whatever happens will happen – and what falls will fall, » a source involved in the political negotiations told Kan, referring generally to potential laws that would be put to the vote if such a government was formed would.
President Reuven Rivlin announced on Wednesday that he had tasked Lapid with forming the next Israeli government after Netanyahu admitted the day before that he had not formed a coalition in the 28 days he was asked to Acknowledging the difficulties of forming a unity government, Lapid said on Thursday that his coalition “will have one simple goal: to get the country out of this crisis – the coronavirus crisis, the economic crisis, the political crisis and especially the crisis within us in the people of Israel. “
In addition to resolving their own differences, Lapid and Bennett must assemble a majority coalition of an unlikely mix of right, left and centrist parties, as well as the Islamist Ra’am party, which complicates matters and raises questions about how stable it would be such a government from the start.
And they need to appease their own party members who are likely to struggle to reconcile their views with their aspiring coalition partners.
Yaminas Amichai Chikli has said he will oppose them vote planned coalition. Several other members of the Yamina Knesset said Thursday that Netanyahu had tried to persuade her to quit the party and to declare her opposition to joining a coalition with left factions. They said they rejected the effort.
« Netanyahu is busy pulling Israel into the fifth election. I think that’s the worst option, « Kahana said in a post on his Facebook page.
Kahana said Israel needs a government that » doesn’t surrender Hebron, doesn’t release thousands of terrorists, not for displacement of Jews out of their homes and doesn’t do many things that Benjamin Netanyahu did. «
Meanwhile, Liberman released a list on Friday of the requirements for his party’s entry into a unity government, including the passage of what is known as the bill that would require ultra-Orthodox Israelis, like most other Israelis, to be drafted into the military.
Liberman’s demands were not much different from the party’s platform, including demonopolizing the chief rabbinate’s control over kosher food certification in Israel and calling for civil marriage.
An unnamed source from the Islamist Ra’am party shared However, Channel 12 advised that she would not agree to civil marriage and the « violation of family values ».
If Lapid fails to cobble together a coalition during his 28-day timeframe ending June 2nd a majority of lawmakers are trying to get every Knesset member lied as Prime Minister.
If this 21-day deadline does not result in a coalition, the country would be forced into the unprecedented scenario of a fifth election in two and a half years.
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