Bibi Agrees To Resign If Gantz, Lapid, Yaalon, Ashkenazi, Liberman Do Too

If calls for his resignation stem from genuine concern for the integrity of Israeli democracy and rule of law, and not just an opportunity to get rid of the person who stands in the way of their own designs.

Jerusalem, November 25 – Israel’s embattled prime minister strode further into the political morass surrounding his legal troubles today, issuing a challenge to his chief rivals for leadership of the government: he will step down as premier on condition that the chiefs of the parties that stand to benefit most from his departure also leave politics, to demonstrate the purity of their desire to see him go, as opposed to a vehicle for their ambition.

Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who now faces indictment on a raft of corruption-related charges, offered on Monday to resign after ten years in office if Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Moshe Yaalon, and Gabi Ashkenazy, plus Yisrael Beiteinu chief Avigdor Liberman, step down as well. Only such an arrangement, he asserted, will assuage the electorate’s suspicions that the calls for his resignation stem from genuine concern for the integrity of Israeli democracy and rule of law, and not just an opportunity to get rid of the person who stands in the way of their own designs on the helm of the state.

“If the good of the State and of Israeli democracy stand at the center of these men’s calling for my resignation, and it is not their own naked quest for power that drives them, then they should have no problem accepting this arrangement,” declared Netanyahu at a press conference.

Murky legal waters surround the prime minister’s situation. At present Netanyahu enjoys a measure of immunity, but that immunity may lapse if, as expected, another round of elections takes place in March and a party other than Likud forms a government. In the interim, political rivals have insisted the prime minister must step down rather than continue in that capacity while under indictment, and that he must not lead his party in the upcoming elections – though those assertions lack a firm legal basis. Netanyahu and his supporters both deny the validity of the charges and accuse his opponents of exploiting the mechanisms of the legal system to remove him by non-democratic means after failing to do so at the ballot box in multiple contests since 2009 including two in 2019 alone.

The five addressees of Netanyahu’s challenge have yet to respond, but experts expect them to dismiss it at a cynical ploy. “Anything to hold on to power,” predicted one analyst. “And that goes for all six personalities here. Bibi obviously wants to stay in office and to exploit the situation to portray himself as persecuted, while his opponents enjoy the heroic treatment they get from an anti-Bibi media bias, which of course they forfeit if they step out of the spotlight.”

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