Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has personally invited Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman to begin formal talks on entering the government, mere minutes after Liberman set his party's conditions for joining the coalition at a press conference.
Talks will be held at 4 PM, and will mark the first direct talks between the pair since Liberman's abrupt refusal to enter the government after elections last March.
The invitation for initial negotiations would seem to signal an openness to at least some of Liberman's key demands outlines in his press conference earlier Wednesday: the defense ministry, imposing a death sentence for terrorists, and pension reforms.
It is unclear how the talks with Liberman would impact Netanyahu's simultaneous efforts to bring the leftist Zionist Union into the government, or whether the sudden pivot towards the secular-nationalist Yisrael Beytenu signals the end of attempts of a Right-Left "unity government," amid mutual opposition from within both the Likud and Zionist Union parties.
A former foreign minister and once close ally of Netanyahu, Liberman refused to join the current government last year, opting to sit in the opposition rather than serve in a government he accused of not being "truly" right-wing. His detractors accused him of pettiness and self-interest, but he himself has constantly maintained his objections to the current government are based solely on policy.
In the press conference earlier Wednesday, he insisted his differences with Netanyahu "aren't personal," and challenged the prime minister to call him directly if he was truly interested in including Yisrael Beytenu in the coalition government.