Lapid to Gantz: This time, I’ll lead alliance

“Today Yesh Atid-Telem is double the size of Blue and White. So if there is an alliance, I will lead it,” said Yair Lapid.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Yair Lapid, Knesset opposition leader and head of the Yesh Atid party, said Wednesday morning that he is hoping to renew the alliance between Yesh Atid, Telem, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party in the next elections, but insists that he must lead this time around.

“Today Yesh Atid-Telem is double the size of Blue and White. So if there is an alliance, I will lead it,” Lapid told 103FM.

“In the end we will need to unite forces. When the situation was reversed and Gantz had the larger party, I put my ego aside and entered,” he said.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem, and Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party joined forces ahead of the 2019 elections, creating the Blue and White alliance.

Yesh Atid-Telem left the alliance in March after Gantz decided to pursue a coalition government with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. Gantz’s party retained the name Blue and White, while Yesh Atid-Telem sat in opposition.

Lapid told 103FM that he had warned Gantz against entering into the unity government, saying that the agreement with Netanyahu was full of loopholes.

“I told them, ‘Guys, do you not understand that he is cheating you?'” he said, adding, “They did not withstand Netanyahu’s pressure.”

A bill to dissolve the Knesset and head to new elections is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday. Lapid believes the bill will pass. “But until the last minute, we will not know,” he said.

He said he will push for new elections to take place no later than late February or early March.

Lapid said the current government has lost control of itself. “It is quite clear that this government has stopped functioning, at the worst time, in the middle of a national crisis.”