"A mistake that we didn't enter the government on October 7; we must not sit with Ra'am": The defector from Yesh Atid at the 'Meeting of Extremes'

Departing Yesh Atid MK Debbie Biton conducted a soul-searching interview about her party's collapse, stating it should have joined the coalition on October 7 because that's what the people wanted. She opposed sitting with Ra'am and preferred new elections. Biton expressed regret over a previous remark about her family.

Departing Yesh Atid MK Debbie Biton appeared this week on the program "Meeting of Extremes" for a soul-searching discussion about her party's collapse, which plummeted from 24 seats to a party fighting for its survival. Biton said the party's biggest mistake was not joining the coalition on October 7, because that's what the people wanted. She strongly opposed any potential coalition with Ra'am led by Mansour Abbas, saying it would be better to go to new elections. Biton expressed regret over a previous remark in an interview with Miri Regev, where she was asked "Does the whole family vote Likud?" and replied "No, in our house we have lawyers and doctors." She said she should not have presented it as if only intelligent people do that. Her departure is part of a broad wave of resignations from Yesh Atid, including about ten current or former MKs, among them Tatiana Mazarsky, Meir Cohen, Miki Levy, Boaz Toporovsky, and Ron Katz. Some of the leavers chose a different political path: Yoav Segalovich joined Ra'am, and Elazar Stern joined the "Yashar!" party led by Gadi Eisenkot. The background to the wave of departures is also the formation of a joint list with Naftali Bennett, which reduced the number of realistic slots for Yesh Atid.

"A mistake that we didn't enter the government on October 7; we must not sit with Ra'am": The defector from Yesh Atid at the 'Meeting of Extremes'