Coalition source: Herzog asked for significant improvement in the ministries he’d receive upon joining the government.
More details are emerging about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Zionist Union chairman Yitzhak Herzog’s meeting on Sunday night on the possible formation of a unity government.
According to Haaretz, despite the fact that Herzog’s associates claimed that the talks hadn’t made progress, Netanyahu, in various conversations he had on Monday, expressed optimism about being able to wrap up the process in the near future.
The meeting, which was first reported by Channel 2, was long and came after weeks during which the two hadn’t met face to face, according to the newspaper.
Herzog reportedly asked for a significant improvement in the offers that had been made so far so that he could persuade party colleagues to join him.
“We’re not talking only about ideological issues, but also about jobs. Herzog isn’t happy with the portfolios he’s meant to get and is asking that his party get either justice, communications, or culture,” a coalition source told Haaretz on Monday night, adding, “The ministers holding these positions are considered red flags from the left’s perspective and removing Ayelet Shaked, Miri Regev or Netanyahu himself from these portfolios would be considered a significant achievement.”
At the same time, the source stressed that he “didn’t get the impression that Netanyahu plans to give in on this.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett has made it clear that the Jewish Home party would leave the coalition if Shaked would lose the justice portfolio to Zionist Union.
Herzog, meanwhile, has also demanded to be involved in drawing up the natural gas framework and that a series of controversial bills be taken off the agenda.
The report about Herzog’s latest demands follows a Channel 10 report on Sunday which said that Herzog and Netanyahu had been drafting an announcement on a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, which was reportedly one of Herzog’s main demands.
Such an announcement would not mean much, however, since there already is a de facto construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, and would merely serve as a “headline” to help the Labor Central Committee approve a motion to join the coalition.
Meanwhile, polls released on Monday evening found that the Zionist Union would lose seats in the next election if it joins Netanyahu’s coalition. The polls also found that the majority of Israelis are opposed to a unity government.
Following the release of those polls, Zionist Union MKs, already against a unity government, called on Herzog to immediately stop his talks with Netanyahu.
NO, they wage the war because the Jewish nationalists, real zionists, settlers and dissenters obstruct their agenda to give away Judea Samaria. the defamation and delegitimization of the dissenters is absolutely necessary for them to achieve their goals to turn the Israeli public against them. BB/Yaalon are the fountain from which the lies spring.
pure BS written by the same one who wrote the yair golan speech…. criminals who keep propagating their lying narrative to cover up their crimes to avoid investigation and prosecution.
Notice how the TOI propagated Yaalons fairy tale of ettinger being an extremist. Yaalon should be in Jail for using his position to advance his personal agenda by interfering with and obstructing Justice.
Liberman was probably promised those but realized that BB wanted him to go along with something he could not support. I suspect that Liberman turned it down because he knew that he was going to be a fig leaf for BB’s next leftist move…. which would completely destroy Libermans credibility similarly to what it did to Bennett.
Why does BB so frantically court the ZU to his left when it is obvious that he mentioned Liberman purely as a cover for his need.
the fact the BB seeks the left proves that his next moves need the backing of the left because he cannot get that backing from the right. Herzog wants in becuase he gets guaranteed positions instead of losing at the labor primary and he gets to take credit for whatever BB has planned. its oobvious that there is an attempt to recreate sadats diplomacy aura in the israeli mind. whatever BB has planned we should realize it is big enough to warrant his need for backing from lots of seats to the left… if he did not need that backing from the left for a screwing of the right, then why would he not just take in liberman… BB’s big move is anti right, anti settler, anti Judea samaria…. hence a need for lots of support from new sources.
everything looks staged, sisi is connected with saudi, GCC etc so it probably involves some regional play… the saudis want to rapproche with Israel but they need the pals to sign off, the pals want more out of Israel than the right can offer, BB wants to do it but he would need the lefts support when the right cannot. I see the hopey dreamy machine being warmed up to lull the masses into compliance.
HMMMMM ready for peace…. but NOT for a TSS (according to both BB and Herzog) I am curious as to how they will pull this off…. BB seems desperate for Herzog to come in…. wooing labors rank and file with the Sisi event. orignally BB was going to wait for the labor primary to see if Herzog had control but now he appears to be trying to help Herzog maintain control against ZU opposition. Such a scenario means that BB needs the ZU soon. Why the ZU? The ZU is to the left which indicates BB’s needs the support of those who would support his next action AND the ZU has a large number of seats which infers that BB expects many to desert his ship or wants to guarantee that his next action will go through without the support of BY and right wing likudniks.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
I prefer Kador Regal (football a.k.a. soccer) or Basketball they are more enjoyable than politics.
Polls and all that jazz…
And we are still printing the officially released… “polls” as if we never been offered that fare before?
For some time now I have been very busy on other things away from the rotten cesspool of politics.
Upon returning to the scene of the melee I only say that anyone whose stay in power is based on falsehood, accusations against the people as a whole of Nazi like tendencies, betrayals and torture can be and should be expected to expand on that into never before explored miasma. Including returning to political bed with the odorous item.
Netanyahu will do much more and worse than performing a Sharonazo in mold.
@ Ted Belman: 2 Seats looked they went to Meretz as of the Labor people are far left. 7 went to Yesh Atid and 4 not clear maybe to Lieberman in part.
How does one distinguish the Zionist UNion from Yesh Atid?
Any dwindling of support for ZU will go to YA.
What a large plurality of the Israeli public want is for Liebermans party to join the coalition not Herzog.
The merger talk and rumors is killing Labor (Zionist Union) in the polls the latest showing the following:
Panels conducted a poll for Maariv that was published on May 17 2016.
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
26 [30] Likud
18 [11] Yesh Atid
14 [08] Bayit Yehudi
13 [24] Zionist Union
11 [13] The Joint (Arab) List
11 [06] Yisrael Beitenu
07 [07] Shas
07 [06] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
07 [05] Meretz
06 [10] Kulanu
71 [67] Right-Religious
49 [53] Center-Left-Arab
This merger will not happen. Herzog can not get it happen on terms he wants and his party will not agree.
C
http://www.timesofisrael.com/coalition-of-the-unwilling/