Benny Gantz, former Israel’s chief-of-staff and Blue and White party leader plans to swiftly put together a minority government with the backing of the Arab-majority Joint List.
He won’t use the entire period allotted to form a government to negotiate a unity deal with the Likud party, the Haaretz daily reported Tuesday.
Citing a source familiar with Gantz’s plans, the report said he would target March 23 as a deadline to present for approval by the Knesset a government made up of Blue and White (33 seats), the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu (7 seats) and dovish Labor-Gesher-Meretz (7 seats), with most or all of the Arab lawmakers of the Joint List (15 seats) giving their backing from outside the coalition.
Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud nor Blue and White mustered a majority of Knesset seats in last Monday’s election, and neither has a clear path to a majority coalition. The prime minister has the backing of 58 MKs and Likud is the largest party in the 120-seat Knesset.
According to the source, Gantz does not intend to make full use of the time allotted to try and negotiate a unity government with Netanyahu as he did after the last election, believing that Netanyahu has no real interest in such a deal.
Gantz intends to act swiftly so as not to allow Netanyahu time to try and sow discord and break the apparent fragile truce between Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman and the Arab lawmakers.
The report said Gantz also planned to go ahead with the move despite opposition from two right-wing lawmakers in his party, Zvi Hauser and Yoav Hendel, believing that they will fall in line once a deal is done.
Blue and White’s leadership met with Lieberman on Tuesday for what the sides called a “positive and substantive” sit-down.
The top four MKs — Gantz, Yair Lapid, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi — took a photo with Lieberman at the end of the meeting that they disseminated on social media.
Blue and White's No. 2 MK Yair Lapid, on Tuesday, defended his party’s plans to form a minority government propped up on the outside by the Joint List, saying it was the only way to avert the “catastrophe” of the fourth round of consecutive elections.
"Such a coalition, while not the government we wanted, is the only way to break the year-long political impasse," Lapid argued in a Facebook post.
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