Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman threatened Yamina leader Naftali Bennett with political assassination on Tuesday if he enables Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government or allows a fifth election in just over two years to be initiated.
“If we will be dragged to more elections by Bennett’s ego, Yamina will be destroyed,” he said at The Jerusalem Post Group Conference, which will be broadcast online on Thursday. “I think they have realized that. If they join the haredim [ultra-Orthodox] and Netanyahu, it would be the most fundamentalist government we have ever had here.”
Bennett said he wants to see a serious government with good ministers from his party, regardless of whether he will be prime minister.
“I don’t sanctify the job,” he said at the conference. “It is a joke that they deal all day with rotations.”
Also speaking at the conference, New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar said Bennett should tell Netanyahu to stop being patronizing and declare he would not join a government led by Bibi (Netanyahu).
Earlier on Monday, Bennett said Netanyahu could not be trusted to keep his political promises.
Speaking at a conference of the right-wing Besheva weekly newspaper in Jerusalem, Bennett responded to Netanyahu’s attempts to take votes away from Yamina and his daring him to pledge allegiance to the Right.
“This is the same Netanyahu who promised before elections to remove [the illegal Bedouin encampment] Khan al-Ahmar, and now it’s a small city,” he said. “This is the same Netanyahu who promised ahead of election after election to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”
A promise from Netanyahu is just as trustworthy as a driver clicking on Waze, “I am not driving,” Bennett said mockingly.
Netanyahu also promised ahead of multiple elections to form right-wing governments and then preferred Labor under Ehud Barak to the right-wing National Union Party, he said, adding that after the last election, he formed a government with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz without Yamina.
“He promised Gantz that there would be no tricks and shticks and then violated the deal before he even finished his sentence,” Bennett said. “Those who appoint Tzipi Livni as justice minister are not right-wingers. They are just talkers.”
Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz said his party would not join a government led by Bennett. Speaking at The Jerusalem Post Group conference, he said he was confident that if Netanyahu is ousted, the Biden administration would work together with Israel’s new prime minister and achieve a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.