A day after getting the presidential nod to form a government, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid vowed he would try to form a government that would cater to Israelis' need for calm, saying such "unity is not a compromise, it is a goal; this is what the country needs now."
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Lapid, whose only hope of forming a government is by convincing right-wing lawmakers in Yamina and New Hope to sit together with left-wing parties such as Meretz, said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warnings of the dangerous nature of such a coalition were aimed at "fomenting divisions and disparaging."
Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that Lapid and others on the Left would be rolling back the gains made by his government over the past decade by making territorial concessions to the Palestinians and compromising Israelis collective security.
Lapid said "Netanyahu is taking the lowest road possible, and disgracing himself and his office."
"This is going to be a complicated government, but it will have a simple goal: to take us out of the crisis. From the coronavirus crisis, from the economic crisis, from the political crisis, from our internal crisis."
He said that the different ideological differences of his would-be coalition will not be overcome overnight, but "we won't iron things out if we continue to fight. Infighting makes us weak, it stalls us and makes it harder for us to deal with the security challenges and promotes our economy and education."
Netanyahu's deadline for forming a government expired on Tuesday, resulting in Lapid getting a chance. But Lapid, like Netanyahu, might not have enough allies in the Knesset to swear in a government, and if he fails within the allotted period, the Knesset will most likely have to call another early election unless a compromise is found between the two major blocs."
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