Likud said threatening to break up Yamina, absorb some MKs into coalition

A Likud source tells Channel 13 it may try to break up the right-wing Yamina party, drawing some of its lawmakers into its coalition while excluding others. The threat appears to be aimed at leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked to get them to back down on their demands for several ministerial portfolios.

“If Yamina doesn’t accept our offer, we will try to break it up and bring them in in pieces,” the source says. “First Rafi Peretz and then [Bezalel] Smotrich.”

Yamina, in response, says: “We are one faction. We won’t let the prime minister do to us what he did to Blue and White.”

That’s a reference to the dissolution of Benny Gantz’s alliance, after the former IDF chief broke with partners Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon to forge a coalition with Netanyahu.