Herzog: No unity government talks underway
Zionist Union chair denies engaging in talks with PM, but Netanyahu associate insists that Herzog's party is a desired partner; Their last round of negotiations ended with the surprise addition of Yisrael Beytenu to the coalition, with its chair MK Avigdor Liebermen becoming minister of defense.
According to Israel's Channel 10 News, Netanyahu has offered the Knesset Opposition Leader and Zionist Union leader no less than eight ministerial portfolios, including those of the foreign affairs, economics, and culture and sport ministers. If such a deal were to be struck, Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev would have to be assigned a different position, possibly minister for intelligence affairs—which would give her a spot in the Security Cabinet.
Netanyahu has also reportedly agreed to commit to conducting a regional peace conference as part of the potential coalition agreement and is believed to have discussed the ZU's addition with other coalition leaders, in an effort to obtain their prior approval of the move. Bayit Yehudi chair Naftali Bennett, however is reportedly the main cause for concern who could throw a spanner into the works.
The two sides are officially denying the existence of any such negotiations, as they did so in May. The last round of negotiations ended with the Zionist Union remaining in the opposition, and MK Avigdor Lieberman (now minister of defense) and his Yisrael Beytenu party entering the government instead.
Despite the recent breakdown in negotiations, PM Netanyahu remains eager to expand his fragile coalition government as much as possible, so as to remove the constant risk of collapse with the defection of one small party or the other. By gaining Herzog's cooperation, the severity of threats made by coalition members to bring the government down would be greatly reduced.
"The claim about negotiations with Netanyahu is preposterous," Herzog wrote in a Zionist Union Knesset faction members' WhatsApp group, "There has been no progress between me and Netanyahu in the past few weeks, there has been no movement."
MK Itzik Shmuli added that "All the talk of unity is one big spin, intended to distract (people) from the investigations against Netanyahu."
