Yaalon May Run With Labor in Next Election

Former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who declared his intention to run for prime minister on his own party slate earlier in the year, has been forging an alliance with Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay, Haaretz said on Thursday.

Yaalon and Gabbay “have decided to work together…in some capacity,” according to the report, with details to be announced at a later date.

The recently installed Labor leader did not guarantee Yaalon a place on the party’s Knesset slate in the next election, which is not scheduled until 2019, unless Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bows to pressure to resign because of corruption that allegations — or a coalition crisis of another nature — leads to early elections.

Yaalon declared his plan to form a new party back in March. But opinion polls have not been encouraging. Running on his own slate, he was not expected to meet the minimum electoral threshold for representation in the Knesset. He has also said that he would consider joining Kulanu, the party founded by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, like Yaalon a former Likud MK.

Gabbay evidently thinks elections will be held before 2019. Regarding the ongoing criminal investigations of Netanyahu and his associates, he said, “Anyone who says that even if Bibi is corrupt he will remain [in power] must have been brainwashed.”