Lapid had challenged Netanyahu to a debate on Saturday evening and had contacted all three major networks — Kan, Channel 12 and Channel 13 — to say he was willing to hold a jointly-broadcast debate with the premier.
“Why doesn’t he say, ‘I want to [hold a] debate because I’m running against you for the premiership”’? Netanyahu asked.
“Our country is not a game for ambitious politicians,” the premier added.
Channel 12 aired interviews on Saturday evening with almost all the leaders of the political parties running in the upcoming election. Lapid was one of the few main party leaders who declined to be interviewed. Also absent were the Joint List’s Ayman Odeh, Ra’am’s Mansour Abbas and Shas’s Arye Deri.
But the opposition leader and head of the Yesh Atid party, which is polling at between 18 and 19 seats, held a press conference later Saturday, charging that Netanyahu was spooked by the offer for a debate because he “knows the outcome.”
Lapid claimed that, in a debate, Netanyahu would have to reveal “what he is trying to hide from the public with all his might”: A coalition built by Netanyahu would be a “government of extortionists and racists who will take money from those who work and give it to those who do not work, a dark government that will hurt the economy, hurt relations with the Americans and drive our children away,” Lapid said of a Likud-led coalition that would include the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties and the far-right Religious Zionism faction.
Lapid had earlier said Netanyahu was seeking to build “a backwards, racist, extortionist government” that “will push away an entire generation and bury Israeli democracy.”
“We have a real opportunity — perhaps a last opportunity — to change the ruling government on Tuesday and bring about a big change. If enough people leave the house [to vote], we will reach 61 seats and form a sane government,” said Lapid.
