Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday night at a nationally televised briefing that he has accepted a special compromise on a budget plan proposed a few hours earlier by Knesset Member Tzvi Hauser (Blue & White).
The plan delays the budget deadline by 100 days, with an agreement by both the Likud and Blue & White parties not to make any major appointments.
(This prevents the fall of the government — which would have been inevitable by midnight Monday night — thus forcing the country into having to go to elections on November 17 for a fourth time in two years.)
Netanyahu also chided the Blue & White faction, however, calling on them to end their “government within a government” machinations and to work together instead in harmony with the rest of the coalition. “If we work together, the plan and the agreements” will be fulfilled, he said.
Netanyahu praised the compromise, noting that the plan allows the government to continue its work in addressing the novel coronavirus health crisis in the country.
He added that Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is slated to arrive in Jerusalem for talks on the current peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates, as well as the prospect of additional normalization possibilities with other nations in the region.
Netanyahu predicted those opportunities lie ahead, sooner rather than later.
Senior White House adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to arrive a week after Pompeo; both will travel to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and to other nations in the region following their talks in Jerusalem.