Blue and White deadline passes without decision on coalition
"If this is not fixed by the end of the month, there is no point in continuing.”
By GIL HOFFMANDEFENSE MINISTER and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz speaks to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on May 31.(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)
An ultimatum issued by Blue and White leaders that efforts to pass the 2021 state budget must start by the end of October was ignored by the Likud ahead of Saturday night’s deadline.“This government fights all the time,” Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said on October 19. “The damage of being in the government is greater than the benefit. If this is not fixed by the end of the month, there is no point in continuing.”Blue and White leader Benny Gantz will convene the MKs in his Resilience Party that is part of Blue and White on Sunday to consider how to handle the ongoing dispute with Likud. But no firm decision is expected until after the results of Tuesday’s American election are known.Asked if there is a deadline to his ultimatum by Yediot Aharonot columnist Nahum Barnea in Friday’s newspaper, Gantz said: “We don’t have a concrete date. The first two or three weeks in November. We expect action, not declarations.”After weeks of saying that the 2021 state budget must pass into law by the end of the year, Gantz appeared to backtrack in the interview.“The cabinet can pass the budget within two to three weeks,” he said. “It’s ready. Then, there would be four weeks of deliberations in the Knesset. We can pass the first reading and get it all done in January.”Gantz sounded tougher in another interview in the same newspaper that was published on Wednesday. He spoke about forming another government in the current Knesset.“There are steps being taken beneath the surface, and there are opportunities with the current Knesset,” he said. “One thing is sure: We in Blue and White know that continuing this government without a budget is more damaging to the people of Israel than elections.”Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel of the Derech Eretz Party that is part of the Blue and White faction downplayed the possibility of forming a government led by MK Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon of Yesh Atid-Telem in an interview with Channel 12’s Meet the Press program on Saturday night.“There are only two options: A functioning government or elections,” Hendel said. “An alternative government led by Bogie is nonsense.”The Knesset is set to vote on Wednesday on Yesh Atid-Telem’s proposal to disperse the Knesset. But the bill is likely to be postponed if it lacks a majority, because if it would be brought to a vote and fails, it could not be voted on again for six months.Finance Minister Israel Katz said Saturday night that compromises on the budget were not forthcoming.“It is Blue and White that is postponing the budget by connecting it to politics,” he told Channel 12. “If they want to fight, there will be elections.”
