Assessment: Likud and Yashar negotiation teams to meet as early as this week

Assessment in the political system: Likud and Yashar negotiation teams will meet as early as this week, after a planned meeting was canceled following Netanyahu's speech. Likud sees the security briefing meeting between Netanyahu and Eisenkot as paving the way. However, a unity government is still far off.

Assessment in the political system holds that the negotiation teams of Likud and Yashar will meet as early as this week, after a planned meeting was canceled following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the Knesset swearing-in ceremony. The cancellation was initially seen as a signal of a rift, but according to sources familiar with the talks, quiet discussions continued and the meeting was postponed, not permanently canceled. The expected meeting will be preliminary and exploratory, during which the sides will present their priorities and examine points of agreement and disagreement. Likud sees the security briefing meeting between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, which took place in a good and businesslike atmosphere, as the factor that paved the way for renewing political contact. However, in the political system, assessments indicate that a unity government is still far off, and that the direction of Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot is rather to examine forming a government with the ultra-Orthodox or Arab factions.