Naftali Bennett
New Right accepted the appointment, which will be voted on at the next cabinet meeting. Blue and White criticized the move.
The government-building logjam continues, with Knesset members analyzing the limited possibilities now in front of them.
“I release [Benjamin] Netanyahu from any commitment to me and to the New Right, and am ready to sit in the opposition. The main thing is to get a government established,” says the New Right leader.
“We have to keep promises made to the electorate,” says Yamina Party leader Ayelet Shaked, “but we also need to see what’s right for the State of Israel, the ideological right and religious Zionism.”
“It’s about balancing values,” says Yamina Party co-leader Naftali Bennett. “What do we do during half a year if we have rockets from Hezbollah and no prime minister? Israel is not Luxembourg.”
Yamina candidate Naftali Bennett says the plan will be “hell” for Israelis living in the West Bank and spell “the end” for the settlement enterprise; Yamina leader Shaked says U.S. plan “will divide Jerusalem.”
Blue and White Party No. 2 Yair Lapid calls the event “a red flag for the citizens of Israel”; Yamina leader Naftali Bennett: “Hamas has stopped fearing Israel.”
For the past three years, the Israel Victory Project movement has been active in trying “to facilitate a change in the public discourse towards an Israeli victory that aims to encourage Palestinian leadership and society that their best chance at prosperity will come once they accept that Israel is the Jewish state.”
In a dramatic reversal, Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett say that in light of the security situation, a new election is out of the question.
A representative from Avigdor Lieberman’s party stated that the sharing agreement is “a technical issue only.”
Polls show better results for a union of right-wing parties under former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked than under current leader Rafi Peretz.
If the parties fail to form meaningful partnerships that combine forces to pass the electoral threshold, the right is at risk of seeing seven or more mandates go to waste, thereby preventing Netanyahu from being able to form a right-wing, nationalist government.
