Center-right leaders said to plot Netanyahu’s ouster

Center and right-wing political parties are said to be banding together in a bid to block a fifth term for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by refusing to accept him as prime minister if the Likud Party is called to form the government after the next election, according to reports Thursday.

They would, however, accept an alternative leader from Likud to ensure that the next governing coalition is led by the right, according to the Haaretz daily and Channel 2 television.

Under Israeli election law, a prime minister is chosen when the president selects an elected MK — he can choose any of the 120 voted in, and is not limited to a party leader or a member of the largest party — and that MK succeeds in cobbling together a ruling coalition consisting of a majority of MKs.

In 2014, Netanyahu fought against the election of President Reuven Rivlin from his own Likud Party, as he believed Rivlin, who famously had a stormy relationship with Netanyahu that lost him the Knesset speakership in 2013, would attempt to offer the job of prime minister to a different Likud MK.

Faina Kirschenbaum, a former deputy minister and key political planner in the Yisrael Beytenu party, told Channel 2 that Liberman, Lapid and Kahlon had already attempted to join forces in order to deny Netanyahu his current fourth term after the March 2015 elections. (Netanyahu served a first term as prime minister from 1996-9; a second from 2009-13; a third from 2013-15; and was reelected last March.)

The plans were frustrated at the time by a police probe into corruption allegations in Yisrael Beytenu, Kirschenbaum claimed. She herself resigned as an MK before the elections in order to prevent her own graft investigation from hurting her party’s ballot-box chances.

According to Haaretz, the latest round of discussions between the party leaders circle around the popular former Likud cabinet minister — and ex-party number two — Gideon Sa’ar, who quit politics in 2014 but is widely expected to return.

According to sources close to Netanyahu at the time, it was Sa’ar who Netanyahu believed Rivlin might choose in his stead.

Lapid and Liberman, whose parties are both currently in opposition, unexpectedly joined forces to hold a conference this week on Israel’s foreign policy, which they followed with a joint press session at which they denounced Netanyahu’s handling of the issue.

Former army chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who is reportedly considering running in the next elections in a centrist or right-of-center party, is also mentioned as a possible figure to rally those disaffected by the long-ruling Netanyahu.

Polling conducted by the party leaders shows that nearly two-thirds of voters say they want Netanyahu to pack his bags, though many of them are uncertain who they would like to see replace the Likud leader, Haaretz reported.

The Prime Minister’s Office has also watched with concern recent quiet contacts between Liberman and Jewish Home leader Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the reports said. Both Liberman and Bennett are former aides to Netanyahu, and both had a falling out with him before attaining high political office in competing parties.

The main stumbling block for any anti-Netanyahu coalition concerns the identity of its leadership, Haaretz indicated. Every figure mentioned in the reports, with the exception of Kahlon, seeks to be at the top of the list to challenge Netanyahu for the premiership. Kahlon, it is said, would happily remain at the Finance Ministry.