Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed eager to put the latest political crisis behind him Monday, telling Likud lawmakers the government "has a lot of work to do" until the next elections, scheduled for November 2019.
Since last Wednesday, Netanyahu has been sparing no effort to prevent snap elections in the wake of Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman's surprise resignation as defense minister.
Early elections seemed inevitable as Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett threatened to pull his party out of the coalition unless he was named defense minister in Lieberman's place, but on Monday, Bennett and fellow party member Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked backtracked the demand and announced that they were putting the good of the state ahead of their own political considerations and remaining in the coalition, withdrawing all demands.
The announcement came after Netanyahu named himself defense minister and urged the coalition parties to "act responsibly" and prevent early elections.
Despite Bennett's decision to keep the coalition intact, it still numbers only 61 out of a total of 120 MKs, giving it a very narrow majority with which to function until the next election.
Addressing the issue in a Likud faction meeting on Monday afternoon, Netanyahu stressed that "to carry on, we have to adhere to coalition discipline. No one can go rogue. These are sensitive times security-wise and the cabinet cannot become a source of leaks [to the media] or the scene of political bullying. Israel's security must outweigh politics."
"I don't need the Right's supervision, as it were. I keep this country safe," he added, alluding to the criticism leveled at the government's security policy, mainly by Bennett.
"We are in the midst of a broad [defense] campaign. I won't elaborate on how and when we will act. The members of the [Diplomatic-Security] Cabinet discussed the issue and decided, unanimously, to adopt the defense establishment's recommendations to wait with the next stage. They [cabinet members] didn't even want to hold a vote," he stated.
Earlier Monday, Netanyahu made his first appearance as acting defense minister before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
He told lawmakers that the volume of Iranian weapons shipments transported through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon has significantly decreased since the Sept. 17 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by Syrian air defenses.
Commenting on his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris last week, Netanyahu said that the meeting "went very well" and that he suggested deepening the existing coordination between the IDF and Russian forces in Syria.
