Smutrich: "We will not sit under Bennett" Israel today

Israel Today has learned that in recent hours, the chairman of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smutrich, and the chairman of Shas, Aryeh Deri, met and coordinated that they did not sit in the government under the chairman of the "Right."

• Smutrich and Deri concluded: "We will not sit under Bennett"

  Photo: 

  Oren Ben Hakon, Oren Cohen

One possible scenario for Bennett is to form a government and then attach the ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionism to it.

"Israel Today" learned that the possible partners in such a move, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and chairman of the Religious Zionist Party Bezalel Smutrich, met in recent hours at Deri's house and agreed "we will not sit in government under Bennett." 

As you may recall, during the day, "right" representatives recommended to the president Bennett to form a government and added a request to the president that if he now assigned the task to a candidate who failed to form a government, the president would not pass the mandate to the Knesset.

The thinking of right-wingers is that if Netanyahu fails to form a government, and the only options are fifth elections or a Bennett-led government with Lapid, Saar and Gantz, the ultra-Orthodox will prefer to join Bennett, push Lieberman out and prevent further elections. 

Now Deri and Smutrich say they did not sit under Bennett and thus remove this possibility from the chapter.

Both Smutrich and Deri would like to hear Bennett declare that he will join the bloc with Netanyahu and from there, in their view, it will be easier to mobilize additional elements and form a right-wing government. 

Smutrich responded: "No details about personal meetings."

As you first reported in "Israel Today", last week Bennett called Deri and examined with him the possibility of joining such a government and heard from him a decisive negative answer - even at the cost of a fifth election.