Tensions between Likud and Blue and White are still running high, and the state budget is the latest cause of mutual suspicion.
The coalition agreement stipulates that the unity government will pass a two-year budget. But experts –including the head of the Treasury's Budgets Department and the accountant general – think that at a time of global economic crisis and uncertainty, a one-year budget would be a better option. Netanyahu supports their position, but members of Blue and White are worried that Netanyahu will exploit the dispute and inability to pass a budget as grounds for a new election, thereby thwarting Blue and White leader Benny Gantz's chances of serving as prime minister in a rotation.
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Associates of Netanyahu are brushing off these concerns. As one associate of the prime minister told Israel Hayom, "It's true we signed a coalition agreement to pass a two-year budget, but it was written in March-April. Since then, things have happened, and the best economics and experts in the world are saying that it's not clear where the economy is headed, and we can't find a single expert who will say that passing a two-year budget is the right thing to do."
According to associates of the prime minister, "This isn't some political trick. Blue and White has nothing to fear. The prime minister doesn't want an election. He understands the situation better than anyone else. There won't be an election."
They also said that Netanyahu planned to present a budget soon, and that "Blue and White can decide what they'll do."
The denials that Netanyahu wants a new election were made after an expose on Channel 12 News on Friday, according to which Netanyahu told Gantz: "Next week, I'm presenting a one-year budget for approval, and if it isn't approved, we're holding an election."
Justice Minister Avi Nissenkoren said Saturday on "Meet the Press" that the two sides were disagreeing about the budget issue.
"We haven't gotten any satisfactory explanation about why the coalition agreement about a two-year budget shouldn't be implemented," Nissenkoren said.
In other political news, high-ranking ministers are arguing that the bloated emergency government, which numbers 36 ministers and 16 deputy ministers, is actually making it harder for the government to handle the coronavirus crisis as the country is engulfed by a second wave of the virus.
One senior minister said that "You spend dozens of hours in meetings, and a lot of the time is wasted. Every minister wants to speak, everyone wants to hear and be heard, wants to be seen, wants to say afterward that he pushed and he did and he initiated. Everyone has something to say and it's just exhausting.
"When you have so many people and everyone is fighting their corner, it doesn't move anything ahead – it bogs it all down. Add to that the tension between the two parties [Likud and Blue and White], and you have a situation in which it's impossible to work," the minister added.
According to the minister, when Netanyahu and former Health Ministry Director General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov were working together, "At least things were moving. Now you feel like you spend hours and hours talking about things, and nothing progresses. I don't think that the results of the second outbreak are the result of that, but it's clear that the number of ministers addressing the issue is awkward and damaging. Netanyahu and Gantz should take over, along with experts, and work on what needs to be done."
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