President Isaac Herzog called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal team on Wednesday to join talks over a potential plea bargain in the premier’s corruption trial.

Last month, Herzog said he would not currently grant Netanyahu’s request for a pardon regarding the corruption charges for which he is on trial, and instead proposed that he mediate negotiations over a plea deal between Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and the prime minister’s lawyers.

The attorney general agreed to enter such discussions without preconditions, but Netanyahu’s legal team has not yet responded to the proposal.

Speaking at the President’s Conference for a Shared Israeli Future on Wednesday, Herzog again called for both sides to come to the negotiating table, but did not mention Netanyahu by name or clarify that it was his team, not the attorney general’s, which was holding up the process.

“Once one side has said it is willing to come into the room, I also expect the other side to come into the room,” the president said.

He explained that the reason he had called for dialogue and to reach “an arrangement” over Netanyahu’s years-long trial was because he believed that it was the only correct way to settle the issue without further dividing the Israeli public.

“I truly believe that in these weighty issues, which scorch the heart of Israeli society and divide it, the........

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