Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers a coalition without the Yamina Party, due to his long-standing animosity toward its leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, sources in the party said Monday.
Bennett met with Netanyahu for an hour last Wednesday and expected a follow-up meeting to be scheduled. But no meeting was set for Thursday, Sunday or Monday, and with Tuesday being Memorial Day and Wednesday Independence Day, they are not expected to meet again until Thursday at the earliest. Netanyahu’s spokesman did not respond immediately to a question about when such a meeting could take place.
Both Bennett and Shaked expressed frustration with Netanyahu’s behavior in online press conferences.
“We are not leaving Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, but he might break off from us,” Shaked said at a press conference on Monday. “If he decides that, it will be his decision, and we will be a fighting opposition that will be an alternative on the Right. We don’t want to be a fifth wheel in the government.”
Shaked said Yamina would not vote for the controversial bills currently being legislated to facilitate forming the government, because it remains unclear whether the party will be in the coalition and because serious legislation that changes the electoral system should not be passed in a week.
She called for the bills to be passed as temporary provisions and not permanent changes in the Basic Law, the legislation that is the fore runner to a constitution that may never be written.
Reacting to a question from The Jerusalem Post about whether she deserves the party’s senior portfolio and not Bennett, Shaked declined to issue a public demand.
“We in Yamina can work out our posts among ourselves,” she said. “The question is whether we will have influence if we join the government.”
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