Apparently willing to let bygones be bygones, a United Torah Judaism (UTJ) MK said Wednesday that his party would be willing to join a government that included Jewish Home - not so for Yesh Atid, which joined the last coalition through an alliance with Jewish Home.
Speaking in an interview on the Knesset Channel, MK Menachem Eliezer Mozes said that his party had an understanding with Shas. The two haredi parties would work together to present a "haredi bloc" to whomever ends up forming a government, he said.
Regarding Yachad - Ha'am Itanu, the party headed by former Shas chairman Eli Yishai, Mozes said he was hoping for the best, but criticized Yachad as being a “splinter” party from Shas despite its union with religious Zionist leaders and technical bloc with Otzma Yehudit.
Mozes said Yachad could end up being a "spoiler" by failing to get over the electoral threshold that was raised by the outgoing coalition, and thereby not allowing right-wing votes to see implementation in the Knesset.
Mozes said that he would have an “easier time” working with Jewish Home, even though UTJ not long ago was extremely upset at Naftali Bennett for allying himself with Yair Lapid, and later with Lapid pushing through the haredi Enlistment Law.
“Jewish Home did assist, but we know that it was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who pushed Lapid to join the coalition," said Mozes, noting that his party did not hold that against the Prime Minister, either.
Regarding the Zionist Union, he said that UTJ has no problem with either Yitzhak Herzog or Tzipi Livni – as long as Yesh Atid was not part of that government.
Shai Piron, the former Education Minister and number two on the Yesh Atid list, was especially undesirable as a coalition partner, he said. “Yesh Atid is definitely our red line,” he added.