Naftali Bennett
Photo: EPA
Top minister: Prisoners' release likely after Passover
Despite Bennett's threat to resign from the coalition if Israeli Arab prisoners are released, government sources confident deal to extend talks will happen after the holiday.
Naftali Bennett, Chairman of Bayit Yehudi, threatened Thursday night to break up the coalition if Israeli Arab prisoners are released as part of a deal to extend the faltering peace talks with the Palestinians. But within the coalition, there are no signs of concern.
The faction leaders of the parties in the coalition have been giving Bennett the cold shoulder since his outburst, and one senior minister in the government cynically remarked that "if Bennett pulls out, no one will object the move, and no one will shed tears."
Another political source noted that Bennett has recently been purposely excluded from the negotiations, and that the negotiating team has not convened out of concern that the Bayit Yehudi chairman would leak details from the meetings.
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"Bennett did not know what was actually happening, and that's why he thought that the prisoner release deal was written off. It's probably why he released that specific threat. Now he'll have to deal with the fallout."
The same source believes that Israel and the Palestinians will reach a compromise after Passover, and until then "things will happen, people will forget, there will be a softening effect. Right now we're letting the holiday have a calming effect on the chaotic atmosphere."
Political sources close to the negotiations believe that recent contact with the Palestinians will lead to a continuation of the talks between the two parties, the release of prisoners, and the release of Jonathan Pollard.
"If the price we have to pay is 14 Israeli prisoners, then we won't have a choice. We could have frozen settlement construction, but Bennett objected. This whole deal is because of him. But now he's against releasing the prisoners," said the source.
Contingency plans
The political victory of getting the US to agree to Pollard's release is a great temptation, explained the source: "There is no Israeli prime minister that could give up the release of Pollard. Israel has a moral debt to him."Israeli officials are examining potential steps that would mitigate the danger of releasing the Arab Israeli prisoners. One possibility is to cancel the Israeli citizenship of the released prisoners.
Another possibility raised during the talks, but rejected by the Palestinians, was transferring the Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
If Bennett and Bayit Yehudi resign from the government, coalition sources expect the prime minister to bring the Labor party, led by Isaac Herzog, into the fold.
"(Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu must speak to Herzog. The pressure will fall on Labor if Bennett resigns, and we'll see how they deal with the dilemma of continuing the talks or blowing them to pieces," said the government source.
Labor officials refused to directly comment on how Herzog would react. Herzog told Ynet that he "is not dealing with this at the moment."
MK Eitan Cabel, a close friend of Herzog, said that "there's too much 'if this and if that' in these questions. I don't want to deal with questions of 'what if' but I have no doubt that in this situation we would face a serious dilemma."
As for Netanyahu's relationship with the other partner in the coalition, Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid – sources close to the finance minister said that "(Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas) will not determine if Yesh Atid stays in the coalition or not."
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni – the other faction heads in the coalition – may not see eye-to-eye regarding the prisoners' release, but neither one intends to quit the coalition.
