The head of the Likud negotiation team, Minister Yariv Levin, clarified on Sunday afternoon at the beginning of the meeting with the Blue and White negotiation team that he still represents the entire right-wing bloc.
"We are arriving to the negotiation meeting today on the invitation of Blue and White as representatives of the entire right-wing bloc, which includes 55 Knesset members," Levin said.
"We are certainly coming [to the meeting] with goodwill. As we have been saying all along, there is no other way but a unity government according to the framework of the president of the state, and therefore we think it was correct to have expeditious negotiations in order to reach an agreement. We wanted to do it when the mandate was in our hands, and we are willing to do it also when the mandate is in Benny Gantz's hands."
"I intend to raise two issues at the beginning of the meeting that, in my opinion, require an answer and are the basis for the whole discussion - to finally receive an answer whether Blue and White accepts the framework of the president, which is the only way to establish a unity government. This the correct path to choose in order to establish a government. The second question is whether the negotiations which are taking place here are in fact real negotiations, or are they a cover and a show while the negotiations are actually held elsewhere with [Joint List chairman] Ayman Odeh and the Joint List for the formation of a minority government."
"Every citizen in the state of Israel - and there are many concerned citizens today - wants to receive a clear answer to whether Blue White's offer for a broad unity government [is genuine] or it's an offer to hold "as if" negotiations here and hold other negotiations with Ayman Odeh to form a unity government where there will be unity between them and the Joint List and not between all the Jewish people and between all the parties that believe in the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. These are the two questions that we will present at the opening of the meeting and I hope we will finally receive answers."