Yamina leader MK Naftali Bennett sparked controversy on Wednesday when he accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties of undercutting the right-wing bloc.
"There is no more right-wing bloc. The ultra-Orthodox are currently sitting in the government, and I am locked out. The ultra-Orthodox and Netanyahu disbanded the bloc," he said in an interview with Haredi newspaper Kikar HaShabbat.
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Outraged, the Likud issued a statement accusing Bennett of realigning with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, as he did ahead of the 2013 general election.
"The 'covenant of the brothers' has returned and it's on steroids," a Likud official said. "Bennett should officially join Yesh Atid. ... After Bennett failed to recommend Netanyahu [for the role of PM] to the president, backed Lapid for prime minister, and announced yesterday [Tuesday] he would support Lapid's bid to topple Netanyahu, he has not officially stated that the right-wing bloc 'doesn't exist.' Rather than forming a satellite party he should just join Yesh Atid."
Yamina responded that "neither Netanyahu nor Lapid deserves to be prime minister as both are only involved in petty politics when what they should be doing is focusing on fighting the coronavirus and rehabilitating the economy.
"Unfortunately, over the past six months, Netanyahu and Lapid have proved that all they care about is petty politics so it seems the mission [of leading the country] will fall to Naftali Bennett following the elections."
Meanwhile, Blue and White is bracing for the next elections while facing turmoil over members' demand to hold primaries.
Citing the party's poor performance in recent polls, insiders said Blue and White members would like to avoid a situation by which party leader Benny Gantz composes the next Knesset slate without their input.
"We are treading lightly. None of us want to rattle the party. but we do want Blue and White to be a democratic party, unlike Yesh Atid, whose chairman Yair Lapid makes all the decisions," a senior Blue and White official told Israel Hayom.
The same official confirmed that the subject of primaries has been discussed by party members for a while but only recently have senior officials started to debate how to act on the matter. Blue and White is a young political party, he added, and its members have until now "felt uncomfortable" to raise the issue of primaries so as not to offend Gantz.
The officials stressed that the primaries are not for the party leadership but for the positions on the Knesset roster. The goal is neither to elect a new chairman nor to challenge Gantz but to create a list of proposed candidates in order to leverage Blue and White's political power as the elections approach.
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