Lapid says Netanyahu building ‘satellite parties’ because he expects election defeat

Opposition leaders traded barbs Monday after Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to engineer “satellite parties” to help him remain in power.

Lapid’s accusation was also seen as a swipe at Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz’s reported efforts to form a joint electoral slate with former fire commissioner Dedi Simhi and Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists party.

The exchange came two days after Netanyahu said he hoped to establish a broad national government after the next election, echoing rhetoric increasingly used by Gantz and his prospective political allies.

Speaking ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Lapid argued that Netanyahu’s outreach and attempts to engineer “satellite parties” were a sign he believes he is headed for defeat in the elections, set to be held by late October.

While Likud is projected to remain the largest party in the Knesset, recent polls show it falling from its current 32 seats to roughly 22-24, neck-and-neck with the opposition bloc’s Gadi Eisenkot, whose newly formed Yashar party has been rising in the polls consistently, and last week overtook Likud for the first time in a Zman Yisrael poll.

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Neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition bloc would be able to form a government, however, due to the rest of the votes going to Arab parties.

“It’s completely clear that Netanyahu is trying to build satellite parties for himself, using votes from our camp, so he can form a government. He has no other way to win. Even so, he won’t succeed,” said Lapid, calling the efforts “desperate.”

Although Lapid did not mention Gantz by name, his remarks appeared aimed at reports that the Blue and White leader is negotiating a joint run with Simhi and Hendel.

There have also been reports that former Likud minister Gilad Erdan and MK Yuli Edelstein — who, according to Hebrew media reports, is expected to soon announce a departure from Likud — are considering launching a new right-wing party.

Gantz declined to answer repeated questions ahead of the Blue and White leader party’s own faction meeting about reports that he is in talks to run jointly with Simhi and Hendel, despite Simhi publicly stating that they intend to do so.

Blue and White said in a statement later on Monday in response to Lapid that “anyone who, on October 7, while our brothers were bleeding in the south, chose to make political calculations and count [Knesset] seats instead of joining an emergency government, anyone who encouraged refusal to serve and division, no longer has a place in public life.”

Gantz has been criticized by other opposition leaders for twice propping up coalitions headed by Netanyahu, who has repeatedly in previous elections reached out to rivals and opponents in order to shore up his own government, only to renege on key political promises and for Gantz to emerge politically weakened.

Lapid again mocked Netanyahu’s call on Saturday for a “broad national government” as another desperate “hail Mary” to remain in office.

“What are you talking about? You will never form another government in Israel. There will be elections, and you will lose,” he said, addressing the premier. “We will not sit with you. Is that clear enough?”

Instead, Lapid said that he and former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s joint Together slate will form a government with Eisenkot’s Yashar, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats, and “hopefully” also with Likud, but only after Netanyahu “loses and is sent into retirement.”

Gantz was notably absent from the list.

Like Lapid and other opposition leaders, the Blue and White leader dismissed Netanyahu’s unity appeal in his own press briefing on Monday, but also seemingly criticized the opposition bloc, with which he has broken in his unwillingness to explicitly refuse to sit in a government with Netanyahu.

“The only way to establish a broad Zionist government that includes both sides is through a large party that represents the bloc of the people of Israel — a party that does not give either side 61 seats,” he said, adding that attempts “by both sides to sabotage this effort… will not bear fruit.”