Warning coalition could fall, Likud minister courts Herzog

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Thursday warned that the government could fall over a likely failure to pass a budget and called on the Zionist Union faction to “show responsibility” and enter a national unity coalition with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.

But MK Eitan Cabel, a key Zionist Union organizer who chairs the Knesset Economy Committee, denied Thursday that there was any talk of a unity government, quashing reports that said opposition chief Isaac Herzog was seeking to bring his party into the coalition.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of Kulanu, who has been pushing for a unity government, had alluded Wednesday to the existence of negotiations to that end between Netanyahu and Herzog.

Commenting on the rash of speculations, Erdan told Army Radio on Thursday that while he was not party to any secret talks, “I know there is a desire to broaden the government… A government of 61 MKs [in a Knesset of 120 lawmakers] must try all the time to achieve more stability.”

He said there was no argument about that within the Likud, and that if the coalition remained unchanged, “it will be very hard to pass a budget, certainly a two-year budget, so the government won’t be able to remain for much longer.”

“I hope,” he continued, “that the [Zionist Union] or other parties will show responsibility and join the government, because there’s no point going to elections at this point.”

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 Army Radio on Wednesday.

At the end of last month, Herzog was named as a second senior Israeli lawmaker suspected of graft, a day after Interior Minister Aryeh Deri — who spent several years in prison for embezzlement — revealed he was again at the center of a major corruption investigation.

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

The day before the vote, Netanyahu vowed that if elected, he would head “a nationalist government. There will not be a unity government, because there is no way to bridge between our positions and the anti-Zionist and radical positions of Labor,” the larger of two parties making up the Zionist Union faction.

Erdan takes a dig at Netanyahu over Hebron soldier

Erdan, in his interview Thursday, also reacted to a public outcry over the shooting death of an incapacitated Palestinian assailant in Hebron by an IDF soldier on March 24. While he declined to discuss the specifics of the case, he defended Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and the military from attacks over an emerging decision to try the soldier.

Asked about Netanyahu’s apparent flipflop in initially condemning the killing but then telephoning the parents of the suspected soldier, Erdan said: “I’m not going to explain the prime minister’s behavior. I can only explain my own behavior.”

Pressed as to whether he would have called the family, Erdan said: “I didn’t call the father of the soldier from Hebron.”