Levin: Blue and White Refused to Accept Rivlin’s Outline

The first meeting between the Likud and Blue and White party members since Benny Gantz was tasked with forming the coalition ended Sunday with representatives of the Likud refusing to budge on their insistence that they would only join a government along with the rest of the members of their right-wing religious bloc.

Minister Yariv Levin, head of the Likud Party’s negotiating team, said at the end of the meeting with the Blue and White negotiating team Sunday that the Likud team represents all 55 MKs of the right-wing bloc, and that bloc is unbreakable.

Levin said after the meeting in Kfar Maccabiah that “Blue and White representatives have once again refused to accept the president’s outline, which is the only way to establish a broad unity government, and have refused to pledge that they will not establish a dangerous minority government based on the Arab parties.”

He added that he hopes that at the next meetings the discussions “will be practical and quick” in order to be able to form a government.

Blue and White said in a statement that the meeting was held in “good spirits” but that Likud “continued to insist that it represents the 55-MK bloc and is not prepared for any compromise on the issue.”

Blue and White has made clear that its primary interest is a unity government together with the Likud.