Lapid: Netanyahu won’t debate because he can only form coalition of ‘blackmailers and racists’

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tears into Prime Minister Netanyahu for not taking up his offer to debate before Tuesday’s elections.

“This evening I heard all of Netanyahu’s excuses for why he ran away from the debate I offered him. It’s all excuses. He’s scared,” Lapid, who heads the Yesh Atid party, says in a video statement.

He notes Netanyahu has made him a focus of the Likud’s campaign and says his offer to debate still stands. Lapid also asserts Netanyahu doesn’t want to debate because doing so would draw attention to the premier’s prospective governing partners.

“A government of blackmailers and racists that will take the money of people who work and give it to people who don’t work,” Lapid says of a Likud-led coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties and the far-right Religious Zionism faction.

He adds: “We have a real opportunity — perhaps a last opportunity — on Tuesday to replace the government, to bring a great change. If enough people leave their homes, we’ll bring [about] the 61st seat, [and] form a sane government.”