Members of the Zionist Union party are for the first time publicly calling on their chairman, MK Yitzhak Herzog, to join Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition, Channel 2 News reported Friday.
The calls are reflected in a video statement by MK Eitan Broshi, who has become the first Zionist Union MK to call on Herzog to enter the coalition.
"Herzog, with the backing that I believe he has in the Labor party and the Zionist Union, can stop [Jewish Home chairman Naftali] Bennett’s run towards a bi-national state and join the government, sit behind the steering wheel and drive in a more accurate, more just, more powerful and more Jewish and democratic direction," he stated.
While Broshi has become the first MK to publicly call for Herzog to join the coalition, noted Channel 2, other Zionist Union MKs feel the same about the possibility of the party joining.
The message by MK Broshi came after he held meetings with senior members of the Likud and spoke to them about the possibility of joining the government, following this week’s approval of the budget, noted the channel.
Herzog has repeatedly insisted he will not join the coalition, despite attempts by Netanyahu to lure him - as well as Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid - into the government.
However, Herzog’s opponents in the Zionist Union have accused him of considering joining the coalition, particularly after the Labor Central Committee approved Herzog’s initiative to add 450 new delegates to the committee. Herzog’s rivals claim the move will enable him to postpone the Labor primaries and thus join the coalition.
Several months ago reports said Netanyahu had offered Herzog several ministerial portfolios in the government and in return was willing to “phase out” Bennett from the coalition.
Bennett, for his part, has said he would not rule out Herzog in the coalition - but only if he accepts the coalition’s guidelines which say that there will be no Palestinian state.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)