New Right party chairman, Naftali Bennett, told Reshet Bet radio on Sunday morning that after the elections, “Netanyahu will topple small right-wing parties,” adding that “the main question is who is Netanyahu’s partner in the next government, does he want Benny Gantz as defense minister or me as defense minister, are we going to wake up with Yair Lapid as justice minister or with Ayelet Shaked as justice minister?”
Bennett also referred to Netanyahu’s remarks Saturday night, that he would consider imposing Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and said: “These statements always appear just before the elections. In the end, a minute after the elections, Netanyahu calls Ehud Barak and puts him in his government, he calls Tzipi Livni and makes her justice minister. This time, I have no doubt that if the New Right is not strong, [Netanyahu] will call on Benny Gantz and bring him in as his partner, and we will wake up to a government of Bibi, Gantz, Lapid, and [Histadrut labor union president Avi] Nissenkorn – which would be catastrophic.”
“I’ll give you the exact scenario,” Bennett predicted. “At 10:05 PM [Tuesday, after the voting ends], the prime minister says, ‘The time has come to unite the people, we call on Benny Gantz to join the coalition.
At 10:30 PM, the Trump peace plan will be on the table, and for the sake of peace, we need a unity government of Netanyahu and Gantz and Lapid. Instead of trying to take votes from Gantz, the prime minister is going above the heads of Smotrich, and myself and everyone else on the right. This is worrisome, because he will bring down some of the right-wing parties.”
Knesset Speaker and No. 2 on the Likud slate Yuli Edelstein told Reshet Bet: “I’m yet to see an election campaign in which any party does not want the most votes for itself. You interview heads of political parties who explain that if they are not appointed defense minister then they would have no reason to join the government. Clearly, anyone who wants a government headed by Netanyahu must vote Likud, otherwise we would get lost among all the demands.”