Blue and White Party No. 2 Yair Lapid will not join a government headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even if Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Blue and White form a unity government, party sources said Tuesday.
“Lapid is for unity, but will not sit in Netanyahu’s government,” said the sources according to Ynet.
Senior officials involved in the negotiations between the two parties also said that during Tuesday’s talks representatives of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz insisted that Gantz would not serve under an indicted prime minister, according to the report.
“One thing that came up during the talks between Blue and White and Likud is our unequivocal opposition to any infringement of the rule of law and refusal to sit with a prime minister who has been indicted, just as promised during the election campaign,” said the source, according to Ynet.
A rotation deal in which Netanyahu would share the premiership with Gantz is one of the options being discussed between the parties.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman reiterated that he would not sit with the ultra-Orthodox or religious right-wing parties, or with the Arab parties or left-wing Democratic Union.
Netanyahu has said he would bring the ultra-Orthodox parties and the religious-Zionist Yamina into any unity government between Likud, and Blue and White.
“I hope for the establishment of a broad, liberal, national unity government,” Lieberman wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “But under no conditions and not for any reason will we sit with the ultra-Orthodox, the messianics, the Joint List [of Arab parties or] the Democratic Union.”
