Coalition talks said to restart, as sides work to hammer out final details

Negotiations between the Likud and Blue and White parties reportedly restart as the two sides seek to work out the final details of their coalition agreement, which would result in the first fully functional government in roughly a year and a half.

Channel 12 reports the main sticking points in the talks remain final agreement on who will serve as justice minister and as Knesset speaker, as well as the issue of unilateral annexation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, which \Likud and parts of its bloc support and which Blue and White does not.

In recent days, the two sides have gone back and forth on the position of justice minister, with Blue and White demanding its MK Avi Nissenkorn take the role, while the Likud wants Blue and White MK Chili Tropper to take it.

The Likud has also been pushing for Yuli Edelstein to resume his position of Knesset speaker, after he left the position in protest of a Supreme Court order for him to hold a vote that saw his ouster. The Blue and White party has refused to have Edelstein return, with some in the faction seeing his actions as anti-democratic. Minister Yariv Levin has been floated as a possible replacement for him.

While the two are expected to eventually reach a compromise on these posts, the larger contentions seems to be over West Bank annexation, with Likud — pushed by the farther right Yamina faction — demanding that this be a requisite for forming a government, while Blue and White opposes a unilateral action, calling instead for a negotiated one.