With polls showing the Religious Zionism party riding high and elections just 100 days away, party head MK Bezalel Smotrich and head of the Otzma Yehudit party, MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, are holding frequent meetings in order to settle the question of whether to run together as a technical bloc or to officially merge the parties.
The negotiations themselves are being managed by Yehuda Eliyahu (on Smotrich's behalf), a former head of the Binyamin Regional Council, and Hanamel Dorfman, an attorney who has long had close ties to Ben-Gvir.
Although a recent statement put out by the Religious Zionism party stressed that negotiations were being held in a "friendly" atmosphere, the gaps between the positions of the two leaders are still seen as significant.
According to a report in Israel Hayom, Ben-Gvir is the one pushing for a total merger between the two parties, a merger that would create a single party in all aspects, with the party list made up of members from the two factions in alternate position.
In response to the report, the Religious Zionism party issued a statement saying that, "It is a shame that there are those who prefer to 'conduct negotiations' in the media and thereby harm public confidence. We will continue to move forward in closed negotiations conducted out of the limelight, and when there is news to report, we will inform the public at the earliest possible moment."
Meanwhile, officials from the Likud party are apparently becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the talks between Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, seeing the delay in announcing their union as damaging the right-wing bloc's prospects.
Within the Yamina party, desperate to rebrand itself in order to salvage its chances of passing the electoral threshold, negotiations between party head Ayelet Shaked and the Derekh Eretz party (comprised of Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser) are apparently advancing, with an announcement expected later this week.