Kahlon: We need a peace process, Zionist Union should join coalition

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon once again called on the Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog to joint the Likud-led coalition, charging that a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was an issue the government needed to move forward with.

In an interview aired Saturday night, the leader of the centrist Kulanu party said that with the 24-seat Zionist Union in the coalition, the government could “advance on important issues, especially on the peace process.”

Asked if he backed the establishment of a Palestinian state, Kahlon said he supported “a peace process at the end of which… there will be two states for two people.”

Herzog “needs to show bravery and leadership, despite the pressures. A leader needs to make decisions when times are hard, not when it’s easy,” he said.

“The door to this government is still open. There are important portfolios that have not been assigned [the Foreign Ministry, Communications Ministry, Economy Ministry] and not for no reason,” Kahlon claimed, intimating that the posts were being held as bargaining ships in any future coalition talks with the Zionist Union.

Coalition talks between Likud and Zionist Union collapsed in mid-May, with each side blaming their failure on the other, as Netanyahu cemented a coalition deal with Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman to have his five-seat party join. Liberman was sworn in as defense minister this past week, in an appointment that shook the Israeli political arena.

A former Kulanu minister, Avi Gabbay, resigned in protest of the appointment and launched a scathing attack on the coalition, accusing it of leading Israel along a path to destruction, wrecking US ties and silencing dissent on everything from the gas deal to the army’s conduct.

He said the removal of Moshe Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of staff, as defense minister and his replacement by Liberman was a step too far. “The ouster of a professional, temperate defense minister, who just this year managed to calm a bubbling [Palestinian] uprising, was a move I could not be party to,” Gabbay said late last month.

In his interview Saturday, Kahlon said he was “disappointed” with Gabbay’s decision to resign.

After the entry of Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu into the coalition, Herzog called on Kahlon to withdraw his centrist party from the government, a call the Kulanu leader rebuffed on Saturday.

Kulanu’s exit from the coalition “would not be the right thing to do, we have to carry on. We had elections a year ago. We can’t go to elections every year and bring the country to a halt,” he said.

Earlier this week, Kahlon tried to entice Herzog into the coalition, saying that there was a substantive effort underway to launch a regional peace initiative between Israel and several Arab neighbors, and that the Zionist Union was needed in the government.

“The rumors and talk of a significant diplomatic move in the region are far more substantial than mere hints in newspapers,” the Kulanu party leader said at an event in Netanya.

“I call on the Zionist Union to join the government and not to miss the historic window of opportunity that has been created,” he added. “This is not the time or place to offer details, but we have a rare opportunity for a dramatic shift at the regional level.”

“You don’t lead a diplomatic process or bring about change from the opposition,” he said.

Herzog snubbed that call, saying in a Zionist Union statement on Thursday that the “Likud and Kahlon can forget about us giving legitimacy to the bad path the Netanyahu government and its natural allies are on.”

But Herzog on Saturday indicated he would consider joining the coalition if the right-wing Jewish Home party led by Naftali Bennett leaves.

Bennett has vowed to topple the government if necessary in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.