PM says he did hold high-level unity talks with Herzog

Netanyahu says deal on expanded government fell apart after opposition leader was named as suspect in graft probe

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Wednesday that he had held intensive talks with opposition leader Isaac Herzog on a unity government, after weeks of rumors that the two had discussed the issue.

Netanyahu said following a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that he and the Zionist Union chairman had discussed the possibility, but that those discussions ended after it emerged that Herzog was under investigation for campaign finance issues, according to Channel 2.

Netanyahu added that he could not expand his narrowest of coalitions, which has 61 out of a total of 120 Knesset seats, as “there is one who doesn’t want to (join) and one who can’t,” referring respectively to former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman and Herzog, Channel 2 said.

The revelation comes two weeks after Herzog denied the reports of talks with Netanyahu.

“It never happened. He made no offer and there were no negotiations,” Herzog said on April 15.

According to a Channel 10 report on Monday, Zionist Union was to get seven ministerial portfolios, including foreign for Herzog and economy for former Labor leader Shelly Yachimovich, and a more marginal post for former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, whose Hatnua party forms part of Zionist Union. The coalition guidelines were not to have changed, and the Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home party would have remained in the coalition.

The Channel 10 report said that more important than the probe into Herzog’s fundraising irregularities in the 2013 Labor primaries, the downfall of the talks was the rejection of the offer by Livni and Yachimovich.

When Herzog put the deal to the two of them, Yachimovich said while there were conditions under which she would join the government, these terms were not acceptable. She also said she wanted to be justice minister. Livni, for her part, said she would not accept a marginal ministry.