BICOM

Benny Gantz last night ruled out joining a Government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gantz said: “Contrary to the news reports in the past few days… we won’t sit with Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is busy with corruption affairs.. he is engaged in his own self-protection and he is preoccupied with that. He can’t handle state affairs and is leading it to low and bad places.”

A poll published by Israeli media found that 54 per cent of Israelis believe that Gantz will join a Netanyahu-led government and just 22 per cent believe he will refuse.

Haaretz reported yesterday that Gantz has said in private conversations that if his Blue and White party win four more seats than Likud, he will immediately reach out to the center-right Kulanu party, the right-wing libertarian Zehut party, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties.

Zehut is the wild card of the election campaign and is currently predicted to win four seats or more. Two thousand people attended a Zehut election rally in Tel Aviv last night. A high-ranking Zehut source said that Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin has been contacted by Likud and the Blue and White party about entering into coalition with them after the elections. The source said: “We haven’t closed a deal with anyone. We haven’t promised anything to anyone. Our decision as to who to go with will be made only after the elections.”

At a Likud campaign meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu said President Rivlin was merely looking for an excuse to ask Benny Gantz to form the next government if Gantz won two or more seats than Likud.

In response to Netanyahu’s comments, the President’s office said: “The President will make his decision in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the law… This is another contemptible attempt to undermine public confidence in the President’s stately decision after the elections. The President won’t be seduced by sycophancy and he won’t be intimidated by attacks of this kind.”