With a 'Prime Minister Lapid,' a Fifth Election in Israel Would Loom

With Benjamin Netanyahu unlikely to form a government following Israeli elections last week that yielded a statement, a centrist politician with ties to the U.S. Democratic Party is now very likely become prime minister.

One of the worst-kept secrets in the White House is how President Biden and his administration prefer Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid (Israel Has A Future) Party, to Netanyahu as leader of Israel.

A former TV journalist and best-selling author, Lapid, 57, has close ties to the Democratic Party in the U.S. One of his closest advisors is veteran Democratic consultant Mark Mellman, who runs Democratic Majority for Israel. Rep. Ted Deutch, D.-Fla, is also a good friend of Lapid’s.

But even if Lapid succeeds in securing the 61 votes in the 120-Member Knesset need to govern, Israeli experts who spoke to Newsmax expect his tenure to be brief and a fifth national election in one year to be held in a few months.

“Lapid still has a pathway, but it is not simple,” Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Newsmax, “He could potentially form a minority government with Arab parties supporting him from the outside. Or, in a less likely scenario, he could join forces with Yamina [or “New Right,” a conservative party hosted by Netanyahu’s arch-rival Naftali Bennett].

Schanzer agrees that either scenario “would probably not prove very stable. But both could accomplish Lapid’s primary objective: pushing Netanyahu out of power.”

Former Reagan Administration official Marshall Breger, who has known Netanyahu since the late 1970’s, agreed that “Lapid can, in theory, form a government but he will need the one or two Arab parties. For this and other reasons it will be unstable. If I had to speculate, I think the anti-Bibi coalition will form a government- perhaps without Lapid as prime minister and with the head of another party.”

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.