Likud says right-wing, Haredi parties ‘committed’ to staying together

The Likud party says the heads of the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties met today at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and “committed” to forming “a single right-wing bloc” to stave off calls for a secularist unity coalition of Likud and Blue and White.

For many of the people in the room — UTJ’s leaders Yaakov Litzman and Moshe Gafni, as well as National Union head Bezalel Smotrich — there aren’t any better alternatives, as a unity government with Blue and White and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu would almost certainly condemn them to the opposition.

Shas leader Aryeh Deri had met with Netanyahu earlier today, the party says. He missed the Wednesday afternoon meeting because he had to attend a memorial service for the late Shas cabinet minister David Azoulay.

The parties “decided to form a joint negotiating team,” the Likud statement says.

Exit polls give the collected weight of the assembled parties about 55 seats, short of the 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset.