A fresh wave of news reports on a “warming up” of negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog on forming a broad government greeted Israelis Oct. 4, after the end of the Jewish New Year holiday. It is the umpteenth round of talk on the subject — including in Al-Monitor — but the lead actors show no sign of tiring. Netanyahu and Herzog deny the new reports, but no one in the Israeli political and media establishments takes them too seriously.

The current leaks on contacts — which were upgraded last week during the course of the funeral for Shimon Peres, the ninth president of Israel — were initiated by Likud ministers opposed to the move, which would entail political steps in its wake. Their goal: to thwart the move and embarrass the two partners, who would be forced to deny the leaks and would also face intense public and media criticism as a result.

On the day of Peres' funeral, Herzog met numerous diplomats and leaders who urged him to take action and join Netanyahu’s government in order to push Netanyahu into breaking the impasse in the peace process. Herzog, who during the last two years has been disappointed and forced to eat crow too many times because of Netanyahu’s broken promises, kept things purposely vague.

Herzog knows that only a truly sincere diplomatic process — anchored in writing and in public statements by Netanyahu — would allow him to bring the Zionist Camp into the government. The problem is that Netanyahu is too afraid of such a process to allow it to happen. Netanyahu is game for clandestine agreements, secret appendices and all the other tactical tools that he has adopted to exhaust and evade all those with whom he comes into contact — the Palestinians, the Americans, the Europeans and his coalition partners.