After another meeting with Bezalel Smotrich, during which it was made unequivocally clear that a minority government reliant on the Ra'am party is not on the table, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a press conference and harshly attacked Naftali Bennett of all people. Bennett has decided to "go with the Left," said Netanyahu, adding: "If Bennett wants a right-wing government, he should announce tonight [Tuesday] that he supports direct elections for the prime minister. We don't need to disperse the Knesset; we need a quick national referendum." Likud officials said, "Bennett must stop playing a double game, and he shouldn't be strung along by those who want to topple the right-wing government."
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It seems Bennett is Netanyahu's favorite target. Any time something goes wrong in the negotiations, it is the Yamina chairman who is singled out for aspersion. It's driving Bennett crazy. He doesn't understand what Netanyahu wants from him. After all, he clearly stated the prime minister could count on him and his party in any government that is established. Whether he attracts defectors, Gideon Sa'ar, Mansour Abbas, count him in, says Bennett.
One thing he isn't willing to say is that the option of joining an alternative government with Yair Lapid, Merav Michaeli and Nitzan Horowitz doesn't exist. The reason he isn't saying this isn't merely for negotiation leverage with Netanyahu, but because, according to senior negotiators, someone is pushing him in that direction. That person's name is Shalom Shlomo.
Shlomo was Netanyahu's adviser before resigning to go work with his detractors. First, he hitched himself to Bennett, when the Yamina chairman first ran for a Knesset seat in 2013. He then advised Lapid and Benny Gantz, and recently returned to Bennett, who he is representing in coalition talks together with Tal Gan-Zvi, the Yamina chairman's long-time bureau chief.
During their stint together, Lapid called Shlomo "the most brilliant person in politics." Officials involved in the negotiations say that although Shlomo represents Bennett today, he essentially never left Lapid and is also working on behalf of the Yamina chairman's interests. In other words, he is working to move Bennett toward the left-wing government Lapid wants to form once Netanyahu's mandate from the president expires.
The prime minister objected to Shlomo's inclusion in the talks, just as he objected when Shlomo represented Gantz. The big question, regarding who he truly represents, is a constant cloud hanging over the negotiations.
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