Blue and White leader Benny Gantz will not leave the current coalition to form a government with the Likud and its satellite parties, Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Thursday in an interview with Channel 12.
Lapid was reacting to a report in Israel Hayom that former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering offering Gantz to serve an entire term as prime minister while he serves as alternate prime minister. Such a scenario would be possible in the current Knesset using a constructive no-confidence vote that would be supported by the 61 MKs of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Religious Zionist Party, Blue and White and renegade Yamina MK Amichai Chikli.
“I think there is no chance of Gantz going with Bibi,” Lapid said. “Bibi isn’t prime minister now because no one believed him. He tricked Gantz before and he would again. People can each be tricked once.”
Neither Blue and White nor Likud were willing to respond to the report.
Asked if he believes Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his political allies will fulfill the rotation agreement and enable him to become prime minister in August 2023, Lapid said he believed the agreements will be honored.
Lapid said that a bill enacting term limits for prime minister would be passed by the current government. He said the bill would not single out Netanyahu, and would prevent anyone indicted from serving as prime minister, a minister, an MK, or a mayor.
Confronted with clips of him speaking out against the size of the previous government, Lapid called the size of the current government “a personal failure” for himself.
“There is no defense of it, but the alternative was [an] additional election, and it was critical to bring about change,” he said.