Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Blue & White alliance leader Benny Gantz to “stop the madness” and enter a unity coalition with his Likud party after rumors surfaced that the former IOF chief was preparing to form a minority government backed by Arab lawmakers.
Taking to social media on Saturday, Netanyahu insisted that such an arrangement would be a security disaster for the Zionist entity.
“Have you lost your minds? There is still time to stop this madness,” Netanyahu said in a video clip posted to Facebook.
“Come to your senses and go to the same unity government that the people expect us to go form together.”
Earlier Saturday, Netanyahu reportedly held an “emergency” call with top Likud party officials and cabinet ministers on Saturday to warn that his main political rival was preparing to form a minority government with the support of Arab parties.
According to Hebrew-language daily Maariv, Netanyahu warned that a Gantz-led government would compromise the Israeli security, urging his top political allies to galvanize their supporters to protest against the rumored arrangement.
“We are standing before an emergency situation that we have never had before in the State of Israel,” Netanyahu is said to have remarked during the conference call.
“Going to a [third] election would be a disaster, but forming a government that is dependent on the Arab parties would be a worse disaster. This would be a historic danger for Israeli security.”
Netanyahu also accused Arab MKs of being “supporters of Islamic Jihad and Hamas” resistance movements, and said he was certain that the secular right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party would support a Gantz-led minority government.
Source: Israeli media
