President Reuven Rivlin will give the task of forming the government to Blue and White chairman MK Benny Gantz tomorrow, the Presidente announced Sunday night.If the aforementioned MKs like Yoaz Hendel decided to abandon any previous hardline stance, they only deserve to be shunned for this betrayal, as does Liberman himself. Now, at a time when the country is facing a serious health crisis, they just had to do this.
The announcement follow's Rivlin's meetings with the heads of the Knesset political parties Sunday.
Gantz received the recommendation of 61 MKs, a bare majority, while incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received the recommendation of 58 MKs.
Gantz's Blue and White party received 33 Knesset seats in this month's elections, three less than the 36 the Likud received.
The Blue and White chairman received the backing of the Joint Arab List, Labor-Meretz, and Yisrael Beytenu. The Joint Arab List is not expected to agree to join any coalition, but it may support a minority coalition from the outside.
Of course, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked also have to shoulder blame for what they led to last year, by causing a split on the right that led to this whole deadlock and now potential ouster. It's very sad this had to happen, and now, Liberman was able to commit the betrayal he doubtless always had in mind.
Update: here's also a post by Caroline Glick:
To be clear, this means that 3 former IDF chiefs of staff and two maj. generals on their list support forming a govt with people who support terrorism and reject Israel's right to exist. They have entered a moral abyss and everyone who supports this obscenity is with them.
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) March 15, 2020
Exactly. Now, everyone who's a realist is going to have to work very hard to prevent this awful combination from succeeding in doing any awful. Which should include forming a delegation to Washington to talk with Trump and the GOP in Congress.
