Political analyst Amit Segal said Monday night that associates of Gadi Eisenkot are declaring openly that they will not allow Yair Lapid to serve as Knesset speaker.
That position puts Eisenkot's camp on a collision course with Avigdor Liberman, who announced his support for Lapid for the post.
Segal called Liberman's statement "the dramatic event" and said it brings the internal confrontation inside the opposition bloc to a head far sooner than expected. "This moves the decision on where we're headed not two and a half months from now, but as soon as next week," he said.
He explained the stakes: "A Knesset speaker is easy to appoint and nearly impossible to remove with 90 MKs, so if you appoint a speaker who won't be part of one of the governments you're considering forming, that means that government won't happen."
"Lapid will almost certainly not sit in a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, so putting him in the speaker's chair means Netanyahu goes to elections and a unity government becomes impossible," Segal said.
