Yamina leader Naftali Bennett responded on Monday to a public offer posted on his Facebook page by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to step aside and allow Bennet to assume the role of prime minister for the first year of the tenure of a right wing government.
Bennet said Netanyahu's offer makes no sense and that the prime minister should not try to escape responsibility for his own failure to form a government.
A right-wing coalition even with the participation of Bennett's Yamina party, would still require the support of Islamist Ra'am party, an option the far-right Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich rejects.
The deadline for Netanyahu to present a new coalition will expire on Tuesday evening.