Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that \u201ca minority government will not happen,\u201d as he announced his party would recommend that Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot be tasked with forming the next government. He said he assumed PM Benjamin Netanyahu would also be given the mandate later. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Democrats Party announced that it too will throw its support behind Eisenkot while the Shas Party announced that it would recommend Netanyahu for PM.<\/p>\n
Lieberman made clear he would not serve with Netanyahu under any circumstances, even if offered a rotation. \u201cIn any case, I will not sit with him. Even if he offers me a rotation agreement, it will not happen. He has to go home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was sharply critical of the opposition\u2019s election result and of Eisenkot\u2019s role in it. \u201cWe failed; don\u2019t let anyone tell you otherwise. Forty-eight seats is a failure, and Gadi Eisenkot is responsible,\u201d he said. He said Eisenkot ran a selfish, self-serving campaign that \u201ccost us seven to eight Knesset seats,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n
A repeat election, Lieberman said, is a bad option, and he opposes direct elections for PM. He said, \u201cIt is impossible to pass complex legislation, such as the conscription law, under these circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether he ruled out cooperating with the ultra-Orthodox parties, Lieberman did not answer directly. \u201cFirst, we\u2019ll see how things unfold in the Knesset,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also said that next week the Knesset would replace its speaker, among other moves, and appoint a state comptroller. Yair Lapid wants to be Knesset speaker, Lieberman said, and his party would support the appointment.<\/p>\n
Lieberman also disclosed classified information on Monday, saying the foreign entity suspected of transferring money to the Joint List was the Palestinian Authority. He said the Authority was involved in, and was the guiding force behind, both Ra\u2019am and the Joint List.<\/p>\n
He added that, despite this, the election should not be canceled, but that the Authority\u2019s involvement had led to radicalization.<\/p>\n
A day earlier, it was reported that a Joint List Knesset member had received hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash. There was no evidence that the money came from Qatar, as had been alleged in connection with Qatari involvement in an attempt to encourage Arab voters to turn out. It also remains unclear whether the money was used for election-related purposes or for other purposes.<\/p>\n
Israeli elections 2026: Who will form the next government?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that \u201ca minority government will not happen,\u201d as he announced his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-664661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}