i24 News – Member of Israel’s Blue and White party Alon Tal believes “there is no reason” for Naftali Bennett’s government to collapse before the Knesset summer session.
“Of course we observed a few blows but we are still on our feet and I see no reason to believe that this package and this government of change is going to collapse. At least not before the end of this summer session,” Tal told i24NEWS in response to opposition claims that if the coalition turmoil is not resolved by the end of the month it will fall apart.
“I would like to think that we are still alive more than mostly dead,” he said, adding that “nobody has an interest in crowning a new Bibi-Ben Gvir alternative.”
A member of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party, Tal blamed Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud for the recent failure to pass a bill on West Bank settlement law, and to reappoint Matan Kahana as Religious affairs minister.
Tal claimed that Likud was willing to “burn down the house” by voting against any bill just to weaken the coalition. He also supported calls for the rebelling members of the coalition who voted against the proposed bills to resign.
“Although we will have to do better next time I don’t really see that this is the end of the road for this government,” Tal said, noting that the coalition, managed to pass at least two dozen laws in recent days that were either presented by the government or by individual members of the Knesset.
Responding to ongoing rumors about Israel’s Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar holding talks with the opposition on forming alternative government Tal said he doubted it was possible while Netanyahu was the opposition leader.
“I think that Gideon Sa’ar knows Bibi Netanyahu well enough to understand that this is somebody who has been just chronically dishonest, has broken every single promise along the way and there is no reason to think that whatever he is going to offer now will be met,” he concluded, adding that he doesn’t exclude working with the Likud party in general.
The ruling coalition was going through a crisis in recent weeks with several of its members threatening to leave and join the opposition. Earlier on Sunday, a member of Israel’s left-wing Meretz party, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, said she had completely “lost faith” in the coalition’s leaders but was resisting pressure to resign from the Knesset from coalition members.
