Netanyahu hunts for defectors from change bloc
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is combing Yamina for defectors to kill the incoming coalition government.
Even now, with the new government to be sworn in as early as June 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to give up.
In a June 3 headline, The New York Times announced, “Netanyahu Rivals Agree on Coalition to Oust Him.” The news echoed in other leading newspapers around the world. The same caveat was buried several paragraphs below the lede: “In the meantime, Mr. Netanyahu,… is doing all he can to upend the agreement.”
Netanyahu is focusing on Yamina, headed by the new prime minister-in-waiting, Naftali Bennett.
Yamina is a party to the right of the Likud, with a base driven largely by ideology. Now, that base is in turmoil. In his capacity as party chair, Bennett controls just seven seats in the Knesset, making it one of the smaller parties in the new government. Nevertheless, he seems to have broken just about all his campaign promises. He said he would not be part of a coalition with Ra’am chair Mansour Abbas, who allegedly supports terrorism. He promised that he would not allow Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid to become prime minister because Lapid was a leftist, and the same goes for the leaders of Meretz and Labor.
