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Right-wing parties won’t pledge allegiance to Netanyahu after 3rd elections

Netanyahu pushed right-wing and religious parties into signing a pledge of allegiance to the prime minister as his Likud party negotiated with chief challenger Blue and White.

By World Israel News Staff and JNS

The leader of one of Israel’s smaller right-wing parties has been making it clear in sub rosa talks that after the next election, there will be no more right-wing “bloc.”

According to the party leader, “It [the bloc] was the right move at the time. It was something that was important to do in order to prevent the rise of a left-wing government. But next time, it won’t happen.”

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again fails to put together a government, said the party leader, the right-wing parties will have to consider “other options.”

“We will not run as a bloc, hampering other political moves. If [Prime Minister] Netanyahu cannot put together a government, we won’t go back to what happened these past few months. We will have to look at other options and other mergers,” the party leader said.

Netanyahu pushed right-wing and religious parties into signing a pledge of allegiance to the prime minister as his Likud party negotiated with chief challenger Blue and White after the September 17 Knesset election.

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Blue and White, led by MK Benny Gantz, complained that by establishing an official bloc, Netanyahu was giving the Likud an unfair advantage. Instead of negotiating as two factions of nearly the same size – Blue and White with 33 seats and the Likud with 32 – in trying to form a national unity government, the Likud said that it was negotiating as a bloc of 55 MKs, much greater than Blue and White’s parliamentary strength.

Israel Beiteinu party leader MK Avigdor Liberman, in pushing for a national unity government, charged that the two largest factions were both to blame for the failure in trying to form such a coalition.

He said that Blue and White was showing an unwillingness to show greater flexibility on the matter of rotating the premiership with the Likud while Netanyahu was unwilling to forgo his bloc of 55 and negotiate instead as just the Likud.