Bennett: ‘I have begun talks to form a national unity gov’t’

Yamina head Naftali Bennett said over the weekend that he has entered negotiations to form a “national unity government” with members of the “change bloc.”

Despite the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still has 10 days remaining to form a government, Bennett said he is holding discussions with numerous political actors in order to establish a coalition without Netanyahu, although he said his hopes were not high that such a government could be formed.

Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid confirmed that he and Bennett are in discussions to form a national unity government, N12 reported.

Bennett also rejected the idea of direct prime ministerial elections, saying they would not resolve the political deadlock in the Knesset and further Knesset elections would be required regardless, and in short order.

In an extensive post on Facebook, Bennett said, once again, that his preference was to join a right-wing government but that he did not believe Netanyahu had done enough to bring that about.

In particular, he said the prime minister should have either pressured Religious

Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich to compromise, alluding to the latter’s refusal to countenance support from the Islamist Ra’am (United Arab List) Party although not mentioning it explicitly.

Alternatively, he said Netanyahu should have compromised with New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar and let another Likud MK become prime minister in order to get Sa’ar to form a stable right-wing government.

“From the moment I realized that Netanyahu did not intend to choose one of the two alternatives for forming a right-wing government, I began the effort to form a national unity government,” Bennett wrote.

The Yamina head laid out his exact reasoning for justifying negotiations to form a national unity government, weaving into the complexities associated with the goal of forming a right-wing government, his desire to be prime minister and opposition to a fifth election, which he says will be a disaster for Israel.

Slamming Netanyahu, Bennett said that the prime minister has “no possibility of forming a right-wing government and has no will to do whatever it takes to form a government.”

On the difficulties of forming a national unity government under the change bloc, Bennett said he had little confidence it would be possible, highlighting the ideological differences between all the parties of the change bloc.

Bennett pointed out however that Netanyahu has himself had centrist and left-wing partners in the past such as former Labor leader Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni, then of