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Senior Likud leaders stick with Netanyahu by hook or by crook

All senior Likud leaders, including those who consider themselves candidates to succeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are sticking with him.
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The permanent and common mantra of the center-left parties in the 2019 elections — in the first round in April and the second round Sept. 17 — is “Just not Netanyahu.” The rejection is personal, with the main reason being of course the pending indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their real potential to become criminal convictions. But there’s also another reason, a hidden one, and that is their wish to be rid of someone reigning as prime minister from the right for more than 10 years straight after he led the Likud to victories over the center-left camp in three elections. The Israeli electoral system does not limit the number of terms for premiership.

At least two of those parties, Blue and White and Labor-Gesher, reject only Netanyahu and not the Likud; both are willing to sit alongside the Likud, minus Netanyahu, in a coalition. But no one in the Likud has picked up the gauntlet and acted to oppose Netanyahu. The current mood among the party’s leaders also indicates they also wouldn't do so after the election if Netanyahu again fails to form a coalition, even at the price of losing control of the government in the case that Blue and White does manage to form a coalition. 

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