In the run-up to today's vote on the law to dissolve the Knesset and advance the elections, Arutz Sheva spoke to MK Meirav Cohen of Blue and White about her party's position on the issue.
It turns out that the way to form a government led by Benny Gantz is by inviting the Likud to join the government, provided that Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu is replaced.
"Every day I take care of people whose life routine includes disabilities and care, people who have trouble getting through the day, and suddenly I find that we're sitting at Olympus and playing ego games. I can't look the public in the eye and say we're going to elections that'll cost billions," says Cohen, saying before going to dissolve the Knesset and advance elections, an opportunity should be given to her party's Chairman to try to form a government under his leadership.
"There's a leader who won the public trust with 35 mandates," she says, noting that it is not at all certain that an election campaign will not be good for her party. At the same time, it should be examined from a broader perspective, to understand that going to elections will be bad for the stability of the government and the social issues that must be dealt with, and to examine all the alternatives.
Asked whether her party members were already examining and exploring the various possibilities for forming a government under Blue and White leadership, she replied that she herself was not privy to these talks, but she had no doubt that such a dialogue was already taking place.
On the possibility of inviting the Likud to a government led by Gantz, Cohen says: "We certainly won't disqualify an important party like the Likud, a statist party with many achievements. Our difficulty is with the leader, who's in a very complicated legal situation of three indictments making him blackmailable as we see now. In such a situation every political player becomes a veto player. We reject sitting in a government headed by Netanyahu."
According to her, the demand of her party from the Likud would be to replace Netanyahu with another person, a move that would enable a joint government. When asked if she believes that Likud will accept such a demand, Cohen replied that Netanyahu's position is strong in the Likud, but that "the Likud Party is going through a jolt and people are uncomfortable with the Immunity Law. They don't want corruption, we've already heard people like Michal Shir and Gideon Sa'ar," she says, claiming such voices will continue to grow within the Likud.
And what about the Arab parties? She believes they will not be able to be part of the Gantz coalition. In her opinion, a government headed by Blue and White could also include Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beyteinu, and in effect, all parties that are not "extreme parties", as she puts it, who believe in the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. In this context, she enumerates both the Arab parties on the one hand, and on the other hand, Otzma Yehudit and Itamar Ben-Gvir.