THIRD ELECTION WILL BE NETANYAHU’S FAULT, LIBERMAN SAYS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the country to a third election in less than a year, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman warned in a Facebook post on Sunday.

“The nation will not forgive him,” Liberman wrote.

Liberman pointed out that his party has called for a national-unity government since the September 17 election.

Netanyahu leads a 55-seat bloc of religious and right-wing parties, and if Liberman were to join them, there would be a governing majority and an election could be avoided. However, Liberman has said he will only be in a government based on Likud and Blue and White, which will push for greater haredi (ultra-Orthodox) IDF enlistment and other bills that the religious parties in Netanyahu’s bloc oppose. He also refused to join a Netanyahu-led government in May, and that refusal was part of the impetus for the second election this year.

Liberman blamed Netanyahu for the political impasse, pointing to a plan for a unity government that he presented to the prime minister last month and saying that the Likud has ignored him.

While speaking at the kick-off event of the Christian Media Summit and the inauguration of the Friends of Zion Museum’s media center, Netanyahu said, perhaps sarcastically, “we are in a pre-election period.”

In his plan, Netanyahu would be first in a rotation for the premiership with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, but Netanyahu would not automatically bring the whole right-wing bloc with him.

MORE: https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Third-election-will-be-Netanyahus-fault-Liberman-says-606712