Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains interested in broadening his coalition, he said Sunday.
To that end, he is keeping the foreign affairs portfolio for himself as a bargaining chip in the event of coalition negotiations with a large opposition party, he said.
“We have very special political system — it’s not a presidential, but a parliamentary system with coalitions, and that creates tensions. This tension exists in all coalitions. Overall, the government works fine, though I am not hiding the fact that I am interested in broadening it,” he said.
Netanyahu acknowledged, though, that at the moment “there are no contacts” with opposition parties, “but there is willingness. I am certainly interested in widening the coalition.
“There are many challenges and opportunities, including diplomatic ones,” he added.
Addressing Israeli diplomatic correspondents in the cabinet room at the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu then turned to Israeli intelligence cooperation with foreign powers.
“We are an information superpower. All countries are affected by terrorism — I don’t know a single country in the world that is not affected by terrorism — and Israel provides them with a lot of information,” he said. “We prevented many terror attacks; a lot — not one, not two, not three, not four, not five — a lot.”
Netanyahu said he had just spoken on the phone with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who updated him on his recent meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris. The prime minister refused to provide any details about the conversation.
He noted that his deputy national security adviser, Yaakov Nagel, is in Washington this week to advance negotiations over a new 10-year US military aid package for Israel. Nagel is scheduled to hold a series of meetings from Tuesday to Thursday with American officials.
But, the prime minister cautioned, a new Memorandum of Understanding setting the terms for the next package — the current one ends in 2017 — is not expected to be concluded during Nagel’s visit this week.
“There are many things on the agenda, including the issue of OFD,” the prime minister said, referring to offshore procurement. The main obstacle in the current negotiations is the percentage of the total sum that can be spent in Israel, Netanyahu indicated, though he refused to provide details. American officials are keen to make a larger portion of the grant only usable for purchases from US companies.
No matter what happens, “We won’t be left wanting,” he said.
Washington is Israel’s most important ally, Netanyahu said. “We need to continue cultivating our relationship with the US. I meet many US lawmakers who visit. It never happens that a senator or congressman or governor comes here and we don’t meet them. That takes up a not-insignificant portion of my time, but it’s important.”
Netanyahu also responded to criticism over his apparent unwillingness to publicize a state comptroller report on the government’s ostensible failings in properly preparing for the 2014 Gaza war.
“We don’t want to bury the report. We want the entire truth about Operation Protective Edge to come out, including all preparations before and everything that occurred later,” he said.
He added that he is planning another diplomatic tour of Africa — “West Africa this time” — to follow up on his trip there this month, and said he would attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
There were no plans yet to meet with US President Barack Obama while in the US, he said.
He added that he was being “very careful” not to get involved in the US elections, and was “happy to work with whoever gets elected.”
As reported by The Times of Israel