Bibi: If Herzog Escapes Indictment, He’s Not Fit To Join Gov’t

Absent serious chances of a criminal conviction, Herzog would stick out like a sore thumb and generate more conflict than harmony.

Jerusalem, April 7 – Amid rumors that Opposition leader Isaac Herzog might bring his Labor Party into Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu’s government, the premier told Likud Party officials today that if the recently-opened corruption investigation into Herzog’s affairs does not lead to formal charges in court, he will withdraw his offer to form a unity government with Labor, as the lack of criminal charges would demonstrate that Herzog is ill-suited to a position in the cabinet.

Persistent reports of negotiations between the two leaders have appeared over the last year since elections, with Herzog alternately ruling out a unity government and voicing a calculated ambiguity. Last week, the Attorney General announced a formal investigation into alleged campaign fundraising violations, raising hopes in Likud of shoring up the slim 61-59 majority the Coalition currently holds in the Knesset, now that Herzog would clearly fit in with most of the Coalition politicians.

However, if the investigation does not lead to an indictment, Netanyahu warned his other Coalition partners, he would be forced to reconsider Herzog’s fitness for the role. He told fellow ministers and delegation chairs that absent serious chances of a criminal conviction, Herzog would stick out like a sore thumb and generate more conflict than harmony as a result.

“I can’t have someone with only a whiff of financial impropriety in my government,” insisted the prime minister. “[Minister of the Interior Aryeh] Deri proved he still belongs even after all these years, but Buji remains a question,” said Netanyahu, referring to an investigation, also announced last week, into possible corruption by Deri. The Interior Minister was already tried and convicted in 2003 for corruption in which he engaged in the same position in the late eighties and early nineties, and sat several years in prison as a result.

Netanyahu himself faces a probe into possible misuse of public money and resources in his time at the official Prime Minister’s Residence, in addition to questions related to improper use of travel funds. His wife Sara also stands accused of possible misconduct. While Yisrael Beiteinu leader MK Avigdor Liberman he insists on remaining in the opposition, he has also faced repeated investigations into corruption allegations, and until last year was therefore also a natural part of Netanyahu’s government. And Coalition Whip Tzachi Hanegbi also faced corruption charges and controversy before being allowed to return to a government post. The last time Labor was part of a unity government, in 2012, then-Defense-Minister Ehud Barak of that party similarly faced an investigation in to his use of NGOs for fundraising, a fact that smoothed his assumption of a place in Netanyahu’s coalition.

Any investigation of Herzog is likely to require several months, say experts. “In the meantime, there’s no reason Bibi can’t give Buji the benefit of the doubt and express confidence that Herzog will be found corrupt enough in the end,” suggested political commentator Hanan Krystal.