Jewish Home talking opposition, Likud says they’re wanted in coalition

Likud MK Yariv Levin, a member of the party’s negotiating team, denied claims Friday from the Jewish Home faction that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to create a government without them.

“I think there is no place for those feelings,” said Levin during an Israel Radio interview. “The prime minister not only promised a nationalist government, but that is exactly what we are doing… It is impossible to create it in a short time.”

He called the Jewish Home party a “central partner” in the 67-member coalition Likud is trying to create, while emphasizing that no party can expect to receive all of its demands.

The Jewish Home presented 39 core demands during its meeting with Likud representatives on Thursday, but the sides did not discuss specific ministries. Levin accused the Jewish Home of trying to control the policy of ministries it wouldn’t hold.

Levin also said that because of the Likud’s size — 30 seats — it should hold key posts like the Foreign and Defense ministries, as well as social and economic ministries.

Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal responded that the Likud had not presented any serious offers. “They have presented us nothing. Nothing.”

Magal said the Likud wants to humiliate the Jewish Home and drive them out of coalition talks, so it can create a unity government with the Zionist Union. He added that if this occurred, the Jewish Home would serve as the right-wing opposition to Netanyahu’s government.

Earlier, Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett also cited rumors that the Likud head plans to approach the Zionist Union and its 24 seats, in the hope of forming a unity government. Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog has ruled out the idea.

Bennett’s statements, made in a post to his Facebook page, reflected friction between the two right-wing parties over Bennett’s demand for the defense minister’s job and other senior positions in the next coalition — demands that the Likud is disinclined to meet.

The first day of coalition talks ended Thursday evening without any of the parties shaking hands on a deal, but with cautious optimism from most.

The exceptions were Jewish Home, which expressed frustration at not being given more attention from Netanyahu, and the Kulanu party, which canceled its session.

By evening, Likud representatives had met with their counterparts from Jewish Home, Yisrael Beytenu, United Torah Judaism, and Shas. Netanyahu also met personally with the leader of the Jewish Home party Bennett, but the two men parted without reaching any agreement amid claims from Bennett that his party was being treated poorly in the talks and might be headed for the opposition.

Netanyahu was formally charged by President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday with the task of forming a government after his Likud party won 30 seats in the March 17 elections and 67 MKs recommended him as the next prime minister; he has four weeks to complete the task, with a possible two-week extension if needed.

According to the Hebrew media website Ynet, sources in the Jewish Home party, which won eight seats, said they are concerned Netanyahu will hold out on bringing them into a coalition for as long as he can — a move the prime minister appeared to make when forming the previous government in 2013 — while trying to reach a majority in the parliament without them.

By contrast, MK Ze’ev Elkin from the Likud described a meeting with representatives of Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party as being conducted in a “friendly atmosphere.

“These are two parties that know how to work together,” Elkin said. “There are a few topics that came up. Some of them we see in the same way and some of them require checking and looking into, including legal aspects.”

Yisrael Beytenu, which won just six seats in the election, has touted a death penalty for terrorists as legislation it wants to push through, but Elkin would not comment on whether the idea came up during the talks.

Earlier in the day, Likud also held consultations with ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, which won seven and six seats respectively.

Likud lawyer David Shimron, who is on the party’s negotiating team, said Shas and Jewish Home will likely have to fight it out between themselves for control of the county’s religious services.

“There will almost certainly be conflicting demands on the religion portfolio; we are thinking about a few solutions,” Shimron said.

Elkin asserted that the Likud’s triumph in the elections, in which it secured 30 seats to become the largest party by six places, give it an advantage in the negotiations.

“I think the [coalition] partners understand that 30 mandates is a clear statement, and it is natural that it should be expressed also in the formation of the government and the ability of the Likud to have influence. They have presented us with a lot of demands, but that is always the way it is at the start of negotiations.”

However, Moshe Kahlon, who brought his newly formed Kulanu party to 10 seats in the Knesset, snubbed Likud negotiators by canceling a scheduled meeting earlier in the day.

Kahlon said he backed out of the meeting to protest Likud handing out key positions before official coalition talks officially began, which would make it more difficult to enact economic reforms, Israel Radio reported. The Likud party called Kahlon’s move strange and uncalled-for.

Stuart Winer contributed to this report.