Bennett defends breaking his election promise to not join forces with Lapid

Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett pushes back on the widespread criticism that he broke his promise not to join a government with Yair Lapid or sign a rotation agreement with him.

“The core promise in these elections was to get Israel out of the chaos,” he tells Channel 12 news in a snippet from an interview that will be broadcast during the 8 p.m. news. “I was the only party that was neither ‘only Bibi’ nor ‘just not Bibi,’ and I paid an electoral price for that.

“I understood that if I stick to those words, we won’t get Israel out of the chaos. It’s the easiest thing to entrench yourself in every promise, if everyone did that no government would have been formed, and it happened after four elections. I knew I was going to be criticized, and in the choice between what’s good for Israel and this thing, I chose what’s good for Israel.”