Will Blue and White Stay Together?

YERUSHALAYIM
Blue and White party leaders Benny Gantz (Right) and Yair Lapid.
(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Despite remarkable success in its first election campaign, the future of Blue and White, an alliance of three parties, was in doubt as of Tuesday.

When Yair Lapid was asked whether he would run his Yesh Atid party again with Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience and Moshe Yaalon’s Telem, he was non-committal.

“We’ll discuss it,” Lapid said when pressed to answer on Army Radio Tuesday morning. “We haven’t discussed it yet, but we will. It worked out last time.”

Blue and White received 35 Knesset seats in this, its first time out. However, the issues of sharing the leadership were overcome only with great difficulty, necessitating a rotation of the premiership—with Gantz serving as PM first, then Lapid, if they had won—and internal disagreements plagued the alliance during the campaign.

Meanwhile, Blue and White sources said that Likud negotiators have been trying to snatch away some of their MKs to secure a majority with which to form a government.

The ongoing coalition-making crisis multiplies their politcal value many times over, which can be translated into a very good deal either with Likud if they choose to bolt, or an improved position with Blue and White if they stay.

In the meantime, with all the speculation, none of the Blue and White members have left.

 

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