Blue and White backs its leader Gantz for PM, cool toward unity government with Netanyahu

Blue and White representatives Moshe Ya’alon, Avi Nissenkorn, Tzvi Hauser, Merav Cohen, Karin Elharrar and Pnina Tamano-Shata arrive at President Rivlin’s residence in Jerusalem to kick off the stage of presidential recommendations following last week’s elections.

Meeting with Rivlin, the party recommends its leader, Benny Gantz, to form the next government.

“Not even five months have passed but we are back at the same table,” Rivlin says as he opens the meetings with representatives of all parties who won Knesset seats.

“We are here from a sense of mission towards the people of Israel. We have fought two hard elections and we plan to serve the people who sent us here,” Ya’alon tells Rivlin. “Our goal is to create a national liberal government. That is what most of the people want.”

Ya’alon says Blue and White “invites all the Zionist parties to join us. There is great need right now to unite the public.”

Asked if the party would agree to sit in a unity government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ya’alon says, “What we have seen over the last two years and during the last two elections campaigns — we feel that the damage cannot be fixed without a change in leadership.”

— Raoul Wootliff