JERUSALEM POST
Lapid tells Rivlin: I have succeeded in forming coalition with Bennett
by Gil Hoffman
June 3, 2021

A new governing coalition has been formed and is prepared to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid officially informed President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin late Wednesday night. “I commit to you Mr. President, that this government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel including those who aren’t members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society,” Lapid told Rivlin at 11:35 p.m. Yamina leader Naftali Bennett, Lapid and Ra’am (United Arab List) chairman Mansour Abbas signed an agreement at a meeting on Wednesday night at Ramat Gan’s Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel, in the first coalition deal ever signed by an Arab party. READ MORE

ISRAEL HAYOM Anti-Netanyahu bloc announces deal on new gov’t This means that the so-called “change coalition”, which is based on left-wing parties as well as right-wing factions and lawmakers that had parted ways with Netanyahu, have – at least on paper – enough votes in the Knesset to win a plenum vote that would end the premiership of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has been in power for more than 12 consecutive years on top of another three years in the 1990s.

JNS What does a Bennett-Lapid government mean? The new government will be unprecedented in its composition, consisting of seven parties spanning the entire Israeli political spectrum, plus the backing of an Arab party for the first time…”This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction,” said Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar. “The only thing they agree upon is the need to get rid of Netanyahu.”