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What Bibi-Liberman alliance means for Israel’s opposition

With opposition chair Isaac Herzog failing to join the coalition, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, also in the opposition, is getting stronger.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid (R) and his wife Lihi walk past Likud election campaign posters depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they walk to a polling station in Tel Aviv March 17, 2015. Netanyahu's march towards becoming the longest-serving leader of Israel could be halted on Tuesday in an election that has exposed public fatigue with his stress on national security rather than socio-economic problems. Once a heartthrob television news anchor, Lapid, 51, was the rising star of Israeli po
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On May 20, soon after recently resigned Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon announced that he isn't quitting politics, and that he would run in the future for a top spot in the country’s leadership, the new chairman of the coalition, Knesset member David Bitan of the Likud, was quick to provide his own interpretation of this statement. He determined that Ya’alon would assume the No. 2 slot in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.

It is doubtful that Bitan based his remarks on any real information he might have. It is far more reasonable to assume that this was simply an assessment that fit in neatly with all the dizzying events that reshuffled the Israeli political deck and allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to open the Knesset’s summer session on May 23, with a stable coalition of 66 members.

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