Report: No progress in Yashar-Likud meeting, as change bloc leaders pull in different directions

No progress was made in today’s meeting between representatives from Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Channel 12 reports.

“Eisenkot is determined to create a government in any scenario. You ought to internalize this,” senior Yashar MK Chili Tropper was reported to tell Likud representatives.

A Yashar source tells the outlet that Likud does not seem to grasp that it “lost” the elections.

Likud, for its part, told Yashar’s people that none of the parties from Netanyahu’s bloc should be left out of any unity coalition.

Channel 13 reports that Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman opposed the meeting with Likud representatives, and told Eisenkot that it was a trap laid by Netanyahu.

“The most important goal is to put an end to the Netanyahu era,” Liberman reportedly said, “and we have no interest in giving him artificial respiration.”

“This isn’t a unity government; this is a trap for Eisenkot,” he continued. “We’d be happy to cooperate with Likud after the Netanyahu era.”

B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett, on the other hand, wants the so-called change bloc to more seriously explore the possibility of a unity government with Netanyahu, though with the insistence that Eisenkot should go first as premier in any rotation agreement, according to Channel 12.

According to the report, Bennett prefers that option over an alliance with Arab or Haredi parties, but will not join Likud without his bloc partners.

Meanwhile, the Knesset Finance Committee is meeting for the first time tomorrow under chairwoman Liran Avisar Ben-Horin. The committee will ask Finance Ministry representatives if and when US military aid is expected to end, Channel 12 reports.

Previously committed coalition funds from the last Knesset, which have not been disbursed and which could encourage Haredi draft-dodging, will not be approved, according to the report.