Outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Deputy Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana Sunday to discuss the fate of their Yamina party.
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Bennett has yet to decide whether to resign from the party but appears to be leaning in that direction. Shaked and Kahana, however, are trying to convince Bennett to stay, arguing their party has a right to run in the coming elections and Yamina can garner more Knesset seats than it is predicted to win in the polls.
Should Bennett insist on resigning, Shaked, who has collaborated with Bennett for years, is expected to take over party leadership. Under Shaked, Yamina would likely break right and return to a right-wing bloc led by Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yamina activists, however, have said they would oppose the party falling in line with Netanyahu.
While Kahana is also interested in serving as Yamina leader, he has also received offers to join both centrist and center-left parties should Bennett resign.
Bennett's decision is expected to have repercussions for the political futures of both Yamina MKs Abir Kara and Nir Orbach. Should Shaked decide to run as Yamina leader, Orbach maay prefer to stick with her rather than take his chances with Likud although Yamina is not guaranteed to make it into the next Knesset.
Should Bennett quit the party and the polls predict Yamina will make it into the Knesset, the Likud would have an interest in supporting her and growing the right-wing bloc. Likud party officials have not ruled out trying to reunite Shaked with Yamina MK Amichai Chikli, the latter of whom has been designated a defector for quitting the coalition and as such is prevented from running with an existing party. Such a move is expected to garner enough votes to ensure a Netanyahu-led coalition secures the 61 seats for a Knesset majority.
Chikli, for his party, has rejected the premise, saying, "I will not cooperate with Matan Kahana and Shaked, even if Bennett resigns."
Religious Zionism Party head Bezalel Smotrich, meanwhile, said Sunday that he was doing everything he can to establish an alternative government headed by Netanyahu and prevent the dissolution of the Knesset and a fifth-round of elections.
"I am ready to create a... bridge to Ayelet Shaked and my right-wing rivals so that a government can be formed that will serve the citizens of Israel without dragging us into unnecessary elections," he said.
"The face of [Ra'am leader] Mansour Abbas has disappeared in recent weeks. We are not sitting with supporters of terrorism in the coalition. We were the first to recognize that Bennett was turning left even before the elections. We said goodbye to him and tried to make ourselves heard," he continued.
Last week, Bennett announced the impending dissolution of the Knesset, meaning that Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will serve as caretaker prime minister in a transitional government.
"We recognized the great danger to the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, which is to rely on supporters of terrorism," Smotrich said.
"Thank God we were able to stop the danger, and I am happy about that. From day one, I pointed out the lie of this cover-up policy. We drew a red line and prevented the right-wing from making this terrible mistake, and we will stand there tall, strong, and determined to prevent these mistakes from happening again."
Likud MK David Amsalem said on Sunday that Abbas would be welcome in a possible Likud-led coalition if the government gets a majority without the support of the Islamist party. Netanyahu later denied the Islamist party would invited to join the coalition.
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