Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to engineer “satellite parties” ahead of the next election because he believes he is headed for defeat.
“It’s completely clear that Netanyahu is trying to build satellite parties for himself, using votes from our camp, so he can form a government. He has no other way to win. Even so, he won’t succeed,” says Lapid, calling the efforts “desperate.”
Lapid’s Yesh Atid party recently joined former prime minister Naftali Bennett to form the joint Together slate, led by Bennett.
The remarks come amid reports of the potential establishment of a new right-wing party led by former Likud minister Gilad Erdan and current MK Yuli Edelstein (who, according to Hebrew media reports, is expected to soon announce a departure from Likud), as well as a prospective center-right alliance between Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz, former fire commissioner Dedi Simhi and Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists party.
While Likud is projected to remain the largest party in the Knesset, recent polls show it falling from its current 32 seats to roughly 22-24 in the upcoming elections, neck-and-neck with the opposition bloc’s Gadi Eisenkot, whose newly formed Yashar party has been consistently rising in polls, and last week overtook Likud for the first time in a Zman Yisrael poll.
Speaking during his faction meeting, Lapid mocks Netanyahu’s call on Saturday for a “broad national government” as another desperate “hail mary” to remain in office.
“What are you talking about? You will never form another government in Israel. There will be elections, and you will lose,” he says, addressing the premier. “We will not sit with you. Is that clear enough?”
He adds that he and Bennett will instead form a government with Eisenkot’s Yashar, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats, and “hopefully” also with Likud, but only after “Netanyahu loses and is sent into retirement.”
Asked about Netanyahu’s call on Saturday for a broad national coalition united around opposition to a Palestinian state, and whether he and Bennett share that position, Lapid says: “Our official party position is that the subject is not on the table. It’s not doable. It’s not going to happen in the coming decade.”
He adds that his focus is instead on domestic issues, including “rebuilding, rehabilitating and healing Israeli society, after all the destruction that Netanyahu’s government has spread.”
