Netanyahu: Lapid holds Gantz ‘hostage,’ dragging country to elections

Likud and Blue and White have spent much of the past couple of weeks preparing the groundwork for blaming the other side for the failure of unity talks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues in that vein today, accusing Blue and White no. 2 Yair Lapid of holding the party’s leader Benny Gantz “hostage.” It is the ambitious Lapid, and not Gantz’s repeated insistence that Likud come to the negotiating table alone, without Haredi and right-wing parties in its “bloc,” that is preventing the success of the coalition talks, Netanyahu claims in a Twitter post.

“The only reason we don’t already have a unity government is Yair Lapid. Lapid is holding Gantz hostage, and for an unclear reason Gantz is submitting to him. It’s unbelievable that Lapid is dragging an entire country to elections just because he’s not willing to drop his dream of being prime minister, and giving up the rotation with Gantz,” Netanyahu’s tweet says.