Lapid, Bennett meet for 'government of change' coalition talks
Negotiations follow on from 'progress' in discussions between Lapid and Saar
With a week remaining until the expiry of his mandate to form a government, Yair Lapid appears to be progressing with coalition building efforts.
On Thursday, the Yesh Atid party chief met with Yamina chairman, Naftali Bennett, to discuss the forming of an anti-Benjamin Netanyahu bloc.
Bennett walked away from coalition negotiations when violence broke out between Israel and Hamas earlier this month.
He had also tried and failed to form a coalition with Netanyahu while the Prime Minister held the first mandate to form a coalition after the March 23 election.
The talks followed on from meetings between Lapid and Gideon Saar, leader of New Hope party, another right-wing leader. Saar has demonstrated a preference for joining a “government of change” rather than enabling the prime minister to begin a sixth term, despite coming from the old guard of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Both Bennett’s Yamina and Lapid’s Yesh Atid parties did not publicly comment on the progress of their negotiations, Haaretz reported.
Yesh Atid is simultaneously in discussions with Labor, the left-wing Meretz, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz' Blue and White party.
Large ideological gaps remain between the different factions, making the failure of the talks and a fifth Israeli election in less than three years a real possibility.