Netanyahu to negotiators: “Be flexible and creative”

Likud and Blue and White negotiating teams meet with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Dec. 1, 2019 (photo credit: KNESSET SPEAKER YULI EDELSTEIN'S OFFICE)
Likud and Blue and White negotiating teams meet with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Dec. 1, 2019 (photo credit: KNESSET SPEAKER YULI EDELSTEIN’S OFFICE)

 

Members of the official negotiating teams of Likud and Blue and White have been meeting for more than two and a half hours at the Knesset on Sunday afternoon in a sign that progress is being made.

The two parties met together with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for an hour and then went to a side room without the mediator to continue their meeting. Members of both teams left repeatedly during the meeting and mocked what was going on inside.

“It doesn’t look like there is going to be a headline today,” a member of the Blue and White team told The Jerusalem Post said initially.

Asked whether there was new hope that a third election in under a year could be avoided, a member of the Likud team answered no.

But negotiators kept going back to the meeting and said they were taking it very seriously.

The two sides were expected to discuss a proposal for Netanyahu to remain prime minister for a few months, followed by Gantz for two years and then whoever will be Likud’s leader finishing up the term.

On the way into the meeting, Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin, a member of the Likud’s negotiating team, told reporters that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed him to be “flexible and creative” in the meeting.

Blue and White Party officials expressed rare optimism ahead of the meeting that it could be a turning point.

“We are going to come open-minded and hoping to make progress,” a source close to Blue and White leader Benny Gantz said.

In an effort to ensure the meeting’s success, Blue and White decided not to join demonstrations against Netanyahu.

“You cannot demonstrate against the prime minister when we are in coalition negotiations with him that we want to succeed, because we do not want another election,” a source close to Gantz said.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post