And the bromance became a threesome

After several days of competing news items on coalition talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog, and hubbub surrounding an upcoming peace conference being put on by Paris, it all melds into one massive ball of coalition peace talks scuttlebutt in Wednesday’s papers.

With Herzog set to join the coalition and put it on a slightly more dovish footing, or so he apparently hopes, peace talks have become all the more relevant, as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi entered the fray Tuesday by making a rare declaration that there is now a “great” chance for peace.

But even if Herzog wants to march down the yellow brick road to peace arm and arm with Dorothyahu and the Sissicrow, his Zionist Union faction and Labor Party are continuing to put pressure on him to quit it with all this unity government talk, and that internal rift remains the focus of much of the news coverage.

Yedioth Ahronoth devotes nearly a whole page to a chart showing who is with Herzog and who is against him, showing he’s not in control of his party anymore, to say nothing of Kansas.

Only three MKs join Herzog in the chart: Eitan Broshi, Eitan Cabel and Nachman Shai, while a whopping 18 are out, and only two – Hilik Bar and Manuel Trajtenberg – remain undecided. The paper reports that Herzog can still bring the MKs in if the party as a whole okays it, though that will create an unprecedented situation in which part of the faction will be technically in the coalition but wil vote as if it is in the opposition.

“If Herzog goes into the government it will dismantle the party,” a party insider is quoted telling the paper. “MKs will stay out; Bouji [Herzog] wants so hard to join the coalition because he understands if it doesn’t work out, he’s done as leader of the opposition. He feels like the Biblical Samson – he will die [by his own hand] while taking down the Philistines. And worst of all, he’s going in under terrible conditions.”

In the hope of gaining a little more support for his move, Herzog is preparing to “blitz” central party committee members to back joining the government at a meeting to be called should he reach a deal with Netanyahu, papers report, with an “operation being run by the Histadrut labor federation, which was described by a lawmaker in Haaretz as a “a very disciplined and effective army.”

“Histadrut Secretary General Avi Nissenkorn has begun to prepare the ground for a possible vote,” a senior Labor Party member is quoted telling the paper. “Histadrut leaders and influential activists have been calling hundreds of central committee members in order to prepare them for the vote.”

The paper cites Labor insiders assessing that it is paying off, with a majority backing joining the coalition.

One person apparently not against Herzog joining the coalition is Egypt’s president, whose speech on peace opportunities is seen as a bald-faced reference to the coalition talks.

“Sissi’s statement was made against the background of unity government talks, which may succeed if Herzog is allowed to get into the diplomatic process. As Herzog was requesting to push forward diplomacy, at the same time came the Egyptian president’s speech,” Israel Hayom reports.

Where others see peace, though, Israel Hayom’s Haim Shine sees another opportunity to pick a fight, writing in a commentary that Zionist Union members’ refusal to join the coalition shows the left is really not that interested in peace.

“See the wonders, that the same MKs who represent the left, that for years nudged the Israeli public to speak and to get to a peace deal, are standing today on the front lines of refusal,” he writes. “It seems that for the left words are just empty slogans. At the moment of truth, they balk.”

Analyst Yossi Verter writes in Haaretz that Herzog will basically make the same argument in not so many words when he tries to convince party members to support joining the coalition, using Sissi as wind at his back. Verter also throws another president into the mix, one who is apparently less gung-ho about the flowering bromance.

“Over the past few days, President Reuven Rivlin has been approached both by people close to Netanyahu and people close to Herzog, asking him to call publicly for Herzog to join the government, thereby softening resistance in Labor. Rivlin has so far declined to do so. He is in favor of unity. But he knows who is involved here, particularly one of them, and is fed up with promises and disappointments. He does not want to be a pawn,” Verter writes.

But in Yedioth, Smadar Peri writes that Sissi is no chump either.

“Sissi not long ago was head of intelligence for the Egyptian military. He learned a thing or two about politics here,” she writes. “Not by chance is it urgent for him that we put together a coalition government. He knows that without Herzog as foreign minister, Netanyahu can’t budge. If the gambit works, expect Netanyahu to claim it for himself. If it fails, Herzog will go down big time.”

Valls to the walls

Peri connects Egypt’s newfound interest to its upcoming place as head of the United Nations Security Council, but as anybody who has been watching the news closely knows, it’s France that has taken the lead on pushing peace negotiations forward.

Yedioth features an interview with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls ahead of his upcoming trip to Israel, meant to prepare for the now-postponed peace confab being organized by Paris.

Valls touts the peace conference – opposed by Jerusalem – as needed because “the status quo is bad for Israel, the Palestinians and peace.”

But perhaps more interestingly, he seems to call on a number of Arab states to abandon the Arab Peace Initiative — which promised ties with Israel in exchange for a pullout of the West Bank — urging Saudi Arabia and others to recognize Israel now.

“Recognizing Israel by several states will be an important and unique move that will help move along the peace process and give Israel support,” he says, in an English translation of his comments as reported in Hebrew. “No one can stand for a moment in doubt of recognition of Israel and its security. Everyone needs to take part in this peace process as much as they can.”