
Construction and Housing Minister Ze'ev Elkin (New Hope) denies reports that he is negotiating with MK Yisrael Katz (Likud) and Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar (New Hope) regarding the merger of New Hope and Likud.
New Hope is a breakoff party, and most of its members were originally Likud MKs.
"I'm not familiar with such discussions, I'm not familiar with a dialog such as this," Elkin told 103 FM Radio. "I don't see any plans here, because there is no plea bargain. I don't see that [former Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is retiring. This discussion is not relevant."
"From my acquaintance with Benjamin Netanyahu, I think that we are very far from a situation in which he would leave. It will be very hard for him to come to terms with retiring from political life. At the same time, there could be surprises."
When asked if he and Gideon Sa'ar would rejoin the Likud, Elkin said, "We left the Likud because of what Netanyahu did to the Likud. That only increased during the period in which he was not in power."
Regarding whether a governmental commission should have been set up to investigate the "submarine affair," Elkin said, "All of this talk - it has no basis. With all the rumors that there were, in the end I supported it."
"I debated because I know the incident relatively well - I was the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and later a member of the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet. From what I know I did not see that there was anything to investigate. Not all parts of the issue are known to me, but the final decision I always said was correct - to purchase submarines from the Germans. It's a fact that this government remained loyal to that same decision."
"Netanyahu sees me as one of the main guilty parties in this government's formation, and a kind of glue that works day and night as a connecting minister, so that the coalition will be able to function despite the difficulty and complexity. We wanted to bring about a change for the State of Israel, and we did that. We promised the voter - and amazingly, we kept our promise."