Opposition MK denies Netanyahu-Herzog coalition talks

A senior member of the opposition Zionist Union faction on Wednesday denied coalition negotiations with Benjamin Netanyahu, hours after the prime minister confirmed rumors that his Likud party and Zionist Union had been in advanced stages of talks on a new unity government.

MK Eitan Cabel, a key Zionist Union organizer who chairs the Knesset Economy Committee, leveled harsh criticism of Netanyahu in an Army Radio interview.

“So what if Netanyahu said that, he says a lot of things,” Cabel said. “He has his own interests, and he’ll say whatever comes to mind to strengthen them.”

He said a concrete proposal was never submitted to Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog.

Cabel, who is seen as a possible challenger to Herzog for the leadership of the party, has been adamant in his opposition to a unity coalition with Likud. “We can’t go into a government just because they offered us ministerial positions,” he told the radio last month.

Following a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Netanyahu announced that he and Herzog had discussed the possibility of a unity government, but that those discussions ended after it emerged that Herzog was under investigation for campaign finance issues, according to Channel 2.

The prime minister 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.

Netanyahu’s announcement comes two weeks after Herzog denied the numerous reports of coalition talks.

Last week, the Haaretz daily reported that Herzog and Netanyahu had been holding secret talks for months, and the sides had even swapped draft agreements.

The two had expected to reach an agreement by the end of next month and to present a unity government in time for the summer legislative session, according to the paper.

Gaps were said to remain between the two sides, including Herzog’s demand that Naftali Bennett’s ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party be removed from the coalition — a demand said to have been rejected by Netanyahu — and disagreement over the shape of the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

On Monday, Channel 10 reported that under a potential unity government agreement the Zionist Union would 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.

According to the report, 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.

Rumors about a looming unity government have waxed and waned since last year’s elections.