If Yamina leader Naftali Bennett decides to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, Netanyahu will be able to establish a right-wing government in the current Knesset, Netanyahu said Monday.
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"If we get to 59, we'll get to 61," Netanyahu said, referring to the minimum number of mandates he would need to form a government. The March 23 election resulted in 52 mandates for Netanyahu and seven for Bennett.
Netanyahu did not mention which other MKs from which parties would join the prospective government to give him the crucial 61 mandates.
The prime minister said there were few ways he could see the necessary boost from 59 to 61, but in order not to torpedo negotiations, he would not discuss them.
Netanyahu is concerned that Bennett might join the flank calling for his ouster, under the leadership of Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, and New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar. Netanyahu thinks that those three party leaders will offer Bennett a chance to become prime minister, with the backing of the left-wing parties and the abstention of the Joint Arab List.
On Monday, Netanyahu said in closed-door talks that this scenario would prove that his warnings leading up to the election that Bennett would join the Left were correct.
"Even with Bennett as leader, it wouldn't be a right-wing government, it would be a patched-together left-wing government that won't even last," Netanyahu said.
Meanwhile, Bennett is playing it close to the chest, and as of Monday was still not saying whether he was leaning toward forming a government with the anti-Netanyahu bloc or returning to the right-wing bloc in hope of helping form a government.
Sources close to Bennett denied Netanyahu's claims that the Yamina leader was considering forming a government that would depend on support from the Joint Arab List. Sources said that Netanyahu was in negotiations with former Joint Arab List member MK Mansour Abbas, whose Ra'am party split off and ran separately. The Bennett associates said that Abbas holds "radical nationalist positions" identical to those espoused by members of the Joint Arab List.
As part of the flurry of party meetings and contact on Monday, Abbas met with Lapid, and officials in Ra'am stressed that the party was not ruling out support for "any" candidate.
In the past few days, Ra'am has launched negotiations with the Likud, reportedly brokered by Shas leader Arye Deri.
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Ra'am is not revealing whom it intends to recommend as a candidate to form the next government, and it is possible that the party will abstain from recommending anyone to President Reuven Rivlin when he makes the decision about whom to tap.
Abbas said Monday, "We were and remain consistent the entire time. We are willing to talk to anyone who accepts our principles and will respond to our demands. There is much to do and handle in Arab society, first and foremost increasing crime, and that's what our constituency expects us to do. Therefore, we accept the mandate and the trust of the public who voted for us."
Ra'am is also not ruling out a fifth election as a way to solve the political impasse that has continued for nearly two years. But Abbas associate Ali Salam, mayor of Nazareth, said he thinks that if the choice boils down to a fifth election or supporting a government under Netanyahu, Ra'am would prefer to back a Netanyahu-led coalition.
"If we want to take part in the political game, we need to go with the person who's strongest and in power. A government under Lapid won't last. A government under Netanyahu will. He's the strongest, and we need to go with him," Salam said.
Rivlin is expected to begin consultations with political parties on their preferred candidate to try to form a government on April 5, a spokesman said Monday.
After hearing the parties' recommendations, Rivlin will assign the coalition-building task to one of the candidates by April 7.
While the Likud won the largest number of seats, Rivlin is under no legal obligation to task Netanyahu with putting together a government and can pick another candidate instead on the basis of the parties' recommendations.
Whoever Rivlin nominates will have up to 42 days to try to form an administration before the president assigns the task to someone else. If the second candidate fails, Rivlin can ask parliament to try to choose someone. If that proves unsuccessful, Israel will head into a fifth election.
