A senior Likud official says “a coalition of 61 MKs is an impossible coalition. It is enough that Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich from Tkuma decide to flex their muscle and the government will collapse.”
Ariel and Smotrich are members of Tkuma — a small faction that ran with Jewish Home in the last election as well as in the previous one — but which still maintains its identity as a separate entity from Jewish Home.
“Our mission was to first of all close deals with Shas and Jewish Home, stabilize a 61-MK coalition, and only then close with [Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor] Liberman. The assessment was that the odds of Liberman preferring the opposition were slim and that he will enter [a Likud coalition] anyway for the prestigious Foreign Affairs Portfolio,” the Likud official tells Haaretz.
According to Haaretz, at least four senior politicians may seek the Foreign Affairs Ministry: Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, deputy minister Tzachi Hanegbi, Communications Minister Gilad Erdan and Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett, who has all but been promised to receive the Education Portfolio.
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