Israel's election fight to go down to wire

Coalition negotiations between Likud and Blue and White were canceled on Tuesday after a meeting ended on Monday night without making progress.

By GIL HOFFMAN
NETANYAHU AND Gantz – can they put their animosity aside and serve the public? (photo credit: CORINNA KERN AMIR COHEN REUTERS)
NETANYAHU AND Gantz – can they put their animosity aside and serve the public?
(photo credit: CORINNA KERN AMIR COHEN REUTERS)
The Knesset plenum will not vote on the final readings of the budget deadline extension bill on Wednesday, due to a stalemate between Likud and Blue and White, which will leave the bill only next Monday to pass before November elections would be initiated automatically at midnight that night.
Coalition negotiations between Likud and Blue and White were canceled on Tuesday after a meeting ended on Monday night without making progress. The two sides continue fighting over issues like how to make key appointments, from the police inspector-general and state prosecutor to political patronage positions in cabinet ministries.
The budget deadline extension bill, sponsored by Derech Eretz MK Zvi Hauser, will be brought on Wednesday morning to the Knesset Finance Committee, where coalition chairman Miki Zohar said Likud’s representatives on the committee would let it pass and leave only the final hurdle in the plenum.
In a bad sign for avoiding elections, Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni will also bring allocations of NIS 400 million to yeshivot in his committee on Wednesday, just in case the Knesset disperses and elections are initiated. But United Torah Judaism leader Ya’acov Litzman told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that talk of elections is unacceptable.
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz warned Netanyahu on Tuesday not to initiate a fourth election in just over a year and a half.
“I did not join the government to work for Netanyahu, but to help Israel,” Gantz told reporters at the Defense Ministry. “I won’t get into the tricks and shticks. We made a coalition agreement that formed the government, and the agreement is intended to help Israeli society at this hard time.”
If someone wants to put his own interest ahead of the state and drag Israel to elections, it would be very grave,” he said. “I think the public won’t forgive him, justifiably. I promise you that it won’t be me.”
Yisrael Beytenu expressed outrage at Gafni using his post to make the allocations to yeshivot.
“Gafni and Litzman decide what happens in the government, not the coronavirus or the economy,” Yisrael Beytenu faction head Oded Forer said. “The cabinet ministers are busy satisfying the appetite of United Torah Judaism. Netanyahu and Gantz don’t care about the businesses in danger of closing and the self-employed can wait. There is no budget for the state, but what matters is there is a budget for Gafni and Litzman.”