Zionist Camp MK’s Rail at Herzog

Isaac Herzog’s feeler for renewed coalition talks earned him no plaudits, only brickbats, from Zionist Camp MK’s on Sunday.

“I’ve never seen a slammed door that still had a crack,” MK Eitan Cabel told Army Radio on Sunday, referring to statements by Herzog that the door to talks had been “shut” or “slammed shut” after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suddenly opted for a deal with Avigdor Liberman instead of Herzog.

“Netanyahu knows precisely what the terms are,” Cabel said. “If there is a new situation in which all of Israel will look on and say, ‘You have no choice, you must make a major move,’” then the party would consider it, he suggested. “But we are not there,” Cabel added.

“At this rate the Labor Party will change from an alternative to Likud to an alternative to Aleh Yarok [‘Green Leaf’], a tiny fringe party,” said MK Erel Margalit, “both in size and in the sense of the fantasy we’re living in.

“Netanyahu has established the most extremist government in the history of the nation and instead of bringing him down, we’re waiting outside in the rain for him to let us in, in return for his throwing around some words about peace and regional initiatives,” Margalit added.

MK Mickey Rosenthal argued that Zionist Camp had no justification for a coalition with Netanyahu under any circumstances.

“The prime minister has no intention of ceding anything,” he said in a statement. “Netanyahu is not capable of a significant historic act. He only wants to bring the Zionist Camp into the government to serve as a fig leaf, in anticipation of the diplomatic tsunami Israel faces.”

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) was understandably pessimistic on Sunday about the prospects of a broader coalition.

“It is right to expand the government at this time, because we are really facing large internal and international challenges,” Erdan told Army Radio. “But based on what I see…my cautious assessment is that that won’t happen.”