Bill to Bar Netanyahu from Premiership Back on Agenda

By Shmuel Smith

YERUSHALAYIM — Coalition forces are acting to advance a bill that would bar a lawmaker charged with a serious crime from becoming prime minister, a move aimed at blocking opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu from a return to power.

Such legislation would have to be passed with due haste, as the coalition also seeks a vote to dissolve the Knesset as early as Wednesday.

Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman blamed Netanyahu for the necessity of elections, the fifth time in three years.

“These elections are the result of the intrigues, lies and harassment of one man, and his name is Benjamin Netanyahu,” Liberman said on Tuesday according to The Times of Israel. “The main goal is to prevent him from returning to power.”

Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin told the Kan public broadcaster that his New Hope party backs the bill and that the only reason it has not been passed until now is because Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party had vetoed it.

“It could be that there will be efforts to legislate it now. I don’t know if it is too late,” Elkin said.

Bennett’s opposition to the bill might be withdrawn, since it was due to concerns that it would further push Yamina party MK Nir Orbach into voting with the opposition to disperse the Knesset, according to a report earlier this week on Channel 12. As the coalition itself is now seeking dispersion, the Orbach factor no longer obtains.

Meanwhile, Likud sources were quoted in media reports that they are working to form an alternative coalition within the current Knesset while it remains in session.

Ynet quoted one of those “sources” as saying that they are trying to persuade Defense Minister Benny Gantz to join them, and that Netanyahu is willing to allow the Blue and White chairman to serve first as prime minister in a rotation deal.

Blue and White dismissed the report: “There are no contacts [with Likud], no discussions, nor is there anything to talk about.”