Netanyahu ally: There won’t be 3rd elections if PM again fails to form coalition

A Likud ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday Israelis won’t be forced to go to the polls for the third time in less than a year if the premier again fails to form a government after September’s Knesset elections.

Netanyahu was tasked with putting together a coalition in the Knesset after elections in April, but was unable to muster up a ruling majority before the deadline. Under Israeli law, if the prime minister-designate cannot form a government before the clock runs out, the mandate goes back to the president, who assigns another lawmaker to do so. However, at Netanyahu’s instigation, the Knesset instead voted to dissolve itself minutes ahead of the deadline in late May and schedule fresh elections, preventing another MK from getting a crack at assembling a coalition.

Likud MK Miki Zohar, who initiated the bill to dissolve the Knesset, said such legislation would not be introduced again if Netanyahu’s coalition-building efforts fail to bear fruit after the September 17 elections.

“There won’t be another law to dissolve the Knesset. Next time we’ll do everything to form a government, and if we don’t succeed then [Benny] Gantz will try,” Zohar said at a cultural event in Kfar Saba, referring to the Blue and White party leader.

Zohar said it appeared, however, that Gantz “would have no chance” of successfully cobbling together a coalition, leading to either the formation of a unity government between Likud and Blue and White or fresh elections, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

Both Likud and Blue and White have been cool to the possibility of a unity government, with Netanyahu declaring his backing for a coalition with his “natural” right-wing allies.

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, whose refusal to join Netanyahu’s prospective coalition left the prime minister short of a majority, has said he would push for a unity government if no one is able to put together a ruling majority without his right-wing party.

Zohar pushed back against criticism of the decision to dissolve the Knesset and said Likud didn’t really believe new elections would be called.

“At no point during the process of dissolving the Knesset did we want or wish for elections,” he said.

At another event Friday in Beit Shemesh, Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer ripped Netanyahu over his handling of coalition talks.

“Netanyahu didn’t even sign one coalition agreement. Every time we sat with him, he’d call up [United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov] Litzman and check if this is okay with them,” he was quoted saying by Kan.

Netanyahu’s failure to form a government stemmed from Liberman’s refusal to join a coalition unless a bill formalizing military exemptions for seminary students was passed without changes, a condition rejected by ultra-Orthodox parties.

Separately, former IDF deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, who is running with ex-prime minister Ehud Barak’s new party, repeated his faction’s call for a united center-left bloc.

“Ehud Barak can serve as a platform for creating future tie-ups. We want these tie-ups and I very much hope they happen,” he said at the event in Kfar Saba. “We’ve made no conditions.”

Golan said while Gantz, who he served under in the army, is cut out to be prime minister, “Barak is better suited than him.”

Barak, a former chief of staff who once led the Labor Party, announced his return to politics last week, joining a crowded field of factions vying for the support of left-leaning voters.