MK Eitan Cabel
MK Eitan CabelFlash 90

Coalition negotiations with Likud continue but one party you can presumably count out of being part of the 20th Knesset's government is Labor-Hatnua. 

Veteran Labor MK Eitan Cabel made clear Monday afternoon that there has been no contact between his party and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. 

"We have not received an invitation, certainly not directly, and I can also say not indirectly," Cabel asserted during an interview with the Knesset Channel. "There has been no dialogue between us and Binyamin Netanyahu."

Cabel also rejected the rampant rumor, which has even been propagated by Likud sources, that Labor will join a Likud-led coalition, thereby creating a unity government under Netanyahu's governance. 

"There is no such thing. I don't see that happening. Aside from the fact that matzah is probably affecting part of these thoughts, there's nothing to this."

Despite renunciations from Labor-Hatnua, media continues its speculative frenzy over a possible unity government. 

Israel Hayom journalist and commentator Dan Margalit suggested Monday that delays in coalition negotiations do not stem from laziness but are rather an intentional strategy. 

"The delay in negotiations to establish a government is not laziness, rather an attempt by Bibi to escape from the Right in order to make unity with Labor," he wrote on Twitter. 

Haaretz editor Aluf Ben was also emphasizing a unity government on Sunday, arguing that the "framework agreement between world powers and Iran is the scaffold on which to set up a unity government between Binyamin Netanyahu and Yitzhak Herzog."