Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman reiterated on Monday that the Yisrael Beytenu party will not accept any changes to the make-up of the coalition without elections.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are two options: either this coalition or new elections,” Liberman said, speaking before a meeting of the Yisrael Beytenu faction.
“We hope that the members of the coalition and the Prime Minister will be able to get along and find the necessary compromises. Right now all this escalation in statements has only made things worse. We are the only party that has no ultimatum and no threats. We try not to fight with anyone,” he added.
“I do not see a dramatic change after the elections. If there is a change, the only change will be that the three nationalist parties will come together for 60 seats,” Liberman said, adding, “Currently as we are facing complicated security and economic challenges here and in the region, I would not recommend putting the country into the turmoil of an election.”
“There is no coalition within the coalition, we are certainly not members of any ‘anti-Bibi’ coalition. We try to work and let others work, we do not exclude anybody,” he stressed.
Over the past several days there have been reports that the tensions in the coalition are great and that elections are imminent.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid have had several disagreements, most recently revolving the 2015 state budget and Lapid’s 0% VAT law, which Netanyahu has tried to shelve.
Those tensions flared again several days ago, when Channel 2 published a report saying that Lapid had been attempting to assemble his own coalition – possibly due to frustrations over the languishing 0% VAT law.
The tensions in the coalitions do not end there, however, as a new crisis now appears to be brewing over the Jewish State bill. Right-wing coalition members were furious Sunday at both Hatnua and Yesh Atid for opposing the bill, in what they claim is a flagrant breach of previous coalition agreements.
Lapid ruled out the possibility of elections in the near future, saying in an interview on Sunday, “I do not think that there is one Israeli who wants to go to elections, what’s it good for? I think this is a very bad idea.”
Meanwhile, a poll released Monday found that if elections were held today, Netanyahu’s Likud party would win 22 seats in the Knesset followed closely by Jewish Home with 17 mandates.
Liberman, for his part, has been dealt a very severe blow – the poll found him winning only 9 seats. That same number of mandates is also expected for Moshe Kahlon’s new party, which is as yet unnamed.
In third place was Lapid’s party Yesh Atid, which would drop from 19 seats to 14. Labor is also seeing a slight drop, settling for 13 seats.
