Yesh Atid MK defies Lapid, calls for unity government with Netanyahu

Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern "would be delighted" if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to form a unity government with the opposition faction, he told Army Radio in a Monday morning interview.

"I would be delighted if Netanyahu puts forward such an offer," Stern, a former intelligence minister, told Army Radio. "If he does, it will be on the table and we will have a discussion.

"I was never against the possibility of an extremist-free unity government," the former minister stressed.

Stern’s comments come a few weeks after there was much speculation if Netanyahu would drop Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party to take on Yesh Atid and National Unity, headed by Benny Gantz.

Late last month, Stern's faction leader and opposition head MK Yair Lapid said that a unity government with Netanyahu's Likud would "ruin the country."

Yair Lapid's statements

"I am a decent person, and this would be the death of decency," Lapid explained when asked by Ynet radio. 

"It cannot be in Israel that there will be no opposition to corruption, no opposition to the idea of standing on the steps of the court and threatening judges, opposition to those who claim that moral integrity does not matter, and opposition to the idea that racism and messianism have a place in a government.

"If we declare that there is no opposition in Israel to the idea of corruption and to the destruction of all Israeli values … this does not save the country, it destroys everything that this country represents," Lapid added.

Matan Kahana: Stern's words are irrelevant

The speculation regarding a change in the government came following a column in The New York Times by Thomas L. Friedman in which he outlined a path for normalization between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that would be brokered by the United States. In the peace, he wrote that peace could be contingent on the formation of a unity government with Lapid and Gantz, while tossing aside Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

It was perceived that Friedman, who is close to US President Joe Biden, was writing through the lens of conversations he had with the US president.

Former religious affairs minister MK Matan Kahana (National Unity) dismissed Stern’s words, telling Army Radio later that “It's not relevant, it's a shame to talk about it. Right now Netanyahu needs an extreme government and to be a prisoner of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.”

However, even if there were broad support by the opposition for a unity government, it is unlikely to become a reality to do the current broad support Netanyahu has from his coalition partners, outside of the troubles he is currently facing with the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties in regard to an updated Conscription Law.

Netanyahu and Lapid are set to meet this week, though on the pretext of security.