Live UpdateFrom the Liveblog of Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Likud urges allies to put ‘personal desires’ aside, quickly form government

By Carrie Keller-Lynn 23 November 2022, 2:50 pm 1 Edit

Carrie Keller-Lynn is a political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel

The Likud party continues to push to form a government, leveraging the tense security situation to claim the “public expects” its politicians to put “personal desires aside” and come to agreements to form the right-wing and religious government it plans to lead under Benjamin Netanyahu.

“In this sensitive security period, it is time to put personal desires aside, unite and form a national government that will restore security to Israel,” says a statement attributed to a “senior Likud source,” in a message apparently directed at leaders of allied parties, particularly Religious Zionism chief Bezalel Smotrich.

“This is what the public expects from us and rightly so,” the statement reads.