Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud concluded their meeting Sunday evening at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
The Blue and White negotiating team, headed by Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Shlomo, met with the Likud negotiating team of Tourism Minister Yariv Levin and Attorney Michael Rabilio.
The talks were held in “good spirits,” according to The Jerusalem Post, but “remained at an impasse” and still have a long way to go before any real progress can be made. The two sides said, however, they plan to meet again soon and significantly, neither side turned to the media with statements of recriminations this time around.
One of the main goals of the Blue and White party is the elimination of the necessity of negotiating with the religious parties; the party is continuing to work towards this with its attempt to pry Netanyahu and Likud from the rest of the right-wing bloc. But the effort is proving to be fruitless.
The Likud bloc members from the start had made firm commitments not to be separated out from one another. An early attempt by Gantz to test this commitment with United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov Litzman, and then with others, was swiftly rejected.
Rightwing Bloc Parties Reject Gantz’s Separate Invites
A meeting between negotiators for the Blue and White party and Yisrael Beytenu earlier in the day was said by both to have gone well.
“In most matters of religion and state Yisrael Beytenu and Blue and White see eye-to-eye,” Yisrael Beytenu negotiator MK Oded Forer said.
Those issues include the enlistment of hareidi yeshiva students and young women in the IDF, requiring hareidi schools to teach the Ministry of Education core curriculum, legalizing public transportation on the Sabbath, and civil marriage.
Gantz is scheduled to meet with Yisrael Beytenu chairperson Avigdor Liberman on Monday, and with the co-chairpersons of Labor-Gesher, Amir Peretz and Orly Levy-Abecassis.
On Tuesday, Gantz is set to meet with Democratic Union chairperson Nitzan Horowitz.