Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett said on Friday afternoon that he is willing to pay the price of losing some of his supporters so that a government can be formed.
“An update from me to you, just before the start of Shabbat. You can imagine these are complex days for me,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.
“It is not pleasant to be at the center of an organized attack. I took on a difficult, very difficult role, of someone who would try - not sure he would succeed - to stop the political turmoil that Israel found itself in after four undecided elections - and to form a government that would get the country back on track and work for the citizens.”
“I want to emphasize two things: First, this was not my first choice. I went with all my might with Netanyahu from the moment he received the mandate. Netanyahu failed. He failed to persuade Smotrich to enter, and the rest is known. We are faced with two options, a fifth election or a sincere attempt to form a broad government. Second, I emphasize that this is an attempt. The atmosphere is good, but the gaps are not easy to bridge. I think it is needless to say that I am willing to go far and pay a personal political price among my ‘base’ as long as a government is formed,” stressed Bennett.
“Its organizing principle will be simple - goodwill, and an understanding that not all issues that have been in dispute between right and left for more than seventy years must be resolved now. One can agree to disagree. But - there are core principles that I am not willing to give up and red lines that I will not cross. These are not easy days. I know where I came from and where I'm going, and I'm determined to exhaust this attempt, but it's not easy when people you've gone a long way with, who you raised politically, use harsh words against you that I don't even want to repeat.”
“I call on my friends on the right: one can disagree, but this kind of incendiary discourse, this is exactly why the public does not give us a majority, time after time. The public is fed up with this style, with personal attacks, with marking others as traitors, with holding on to power at all costs. Jerusalem Day is almost upon us, and I want to bring all of us, even those who were not born then, to the moment of the liberation of the Western Wall.”
“To the force and trembling that gripped us all, in the small country that was miraculously saved from destruction. Right, left, center, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, secular, religious - we are brothers. We are at a point where we have to choose - keep hitting each other until the state breaks down, or start repairing. I do not know if I will succeed, but I can assure you, that I will, with all my might, try to correct. Shabbat Shalom, Naftali Bennett,” he concluded.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)