Blue and White bitterly splits ahead of unity deal with Likud
Lapid: Gantz surrendered to PM without a fight
In a dramatic turn of events, the Blue and White Party, which served as the alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2 election, broke up on Thursday after party head Benny Gantz decided to enter Netanyahu’s government.
The three parties that made up Blue and White - Gantz’s Israel Resilience, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem – all went in different directions. Israel Resilience is joining the government, Lapid will head the opposition and Telem will split up, with Ya’alon on the outside and divided.
Yesh Atid and Telem formally asked the Knesset to split off from Israel Resilience and keep the name Blue and White for the two parties together. Yesh Atid MKs wished their former colleagues’ good luck as they left the party’s WhatsApp group.
Gantz reached out to Lapid in a speech after getting elected Knesset speaker, in an effort to prevent the split.
“It has been my intention, and it is still my intention, to do everything possible to keep us together, and I urge all of my potential political partners to act in the same spirit,” he said. “This is not the time for in-fighting and mud-slinging. This is not the time for controversy and divisions. This is the time for responsible, committed, patriotic leadership.”
But Lapid and
Ya’alon responded by fiercely attacking him in speeches in Tel Aviv.
“We formed Blue and White to offer an alternative to the Israeli people,” Lapid said. “The election results proved that Israel needed that alternative like we need air to breathe. We wanted to bring about change, to bring about hope, to start a new path.
Benny Gantz decided today to break apart Blue and White and crawl into Netanyahu’s government. It’s a disappointing decision. What’s being formed today isn’t a unity government or an emergency government. It’s another Netanyahu government. Benny Gantz surrendered without a fight and crawled into Netanyahu’s government.”
Ya’alon accused Gantz of committing political suicide.
There will be a rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office between Netanyahu and Gantz. Netanyahu’s allies will start off as finance minister and Knesset speaker, with outgoing speaker Yuli Edelstein expected to return to the role. Gantz will reportedly serve as defense minister, MK Gabi Ashkenazi as foreign minister, and many other MKs from