Report: Yamina Suggests Deal With Yesh Atid Still Possible

Despite party leader Naftali Bennett last week backing away from efforts to form a government that would replace Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Yamina is signaling that a coalition deal with Yesh Atid is not fully off the table, Channel 13 reported Friday.

The mandate of Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid to form a government ends on June 2. He and Yamina head Bennett were on the verge of clinching a coalition deal with the support of the Islamist Ra’am party when the fighting with Gaza terror groups broke out, leading Ra’am head Mansour Abbas to back out and Bennett to later declare that the option was no longer viable.

The Channel 13 report said that members of the change bloc were acting very cautiously to ascertain Bennett’s position, amid concerns the Yamina head was using the situation to try to increase his demands in negotiations with Netanyahu.