Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu met with President Shimon Peres at 10:30 on Friday morning to ask for more time in which to form a coalition. Peres agreed to the request, and gave Netanyahu an additional two weeks.

After weeks of negotiating with religious and right-wing parties, Netanyahu is now hoping to convince the Labor party, led by Ehud Barak, to join him. Barak has said that he will “seriously consider” the offer to enter the coalition.

In an unusual move, Peres is working to convince Labor to join Netanyahu's government, according to Voice of Israel government radio. The president, who headed Labor before moving to Kadima, “seems to have forgotten that he is no longer in the Labor party,” the station reported.

Barak is facing serious opposition from within his own party to a partnership with Likud. Those opposed to the move include Labor Secretary-General Eitan Cabel, Education Minister Yuli Tamir and MKs Shelly Yechimovich and Daniel Ben-Simon.

Barak's opponents say they will not attempt to replace him as party head over the talks with Likud, but rather will work to convince the rest of the party to vote against joining a Likud-led coalition.

Netanyahu's attempts to bring Labor into his coalition were met with mixed reactions among the religious parties with which he has been negotiating. National Union head Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz said Thursday that he has no objections to including Labor in the coalition, while United Torah Judaism accused Netanyahu of deliberately dragging out negotiations in order to reach an agreement with Labor.