Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the Labor Party's decision to sanction Chairman Ehud Barak's coalition bid, calling it "an important national step."
"(Labor) has made a significant contribution to the establishment of a solid government, which will express the broad unity evident in the public," the prime minister-designate told his faction Wednesday. "I intend to present a unity government to the Knesset next week and ask for its confidence vote."
Israel, he said, "needs a broad, responsible government, that would navigate it through the stormy seas ahead. Unity demands compromises. In this case, our faction had to pay an actual price. I am very well aware of it and I will do everything I can to ensure the leading voices here will be expressed in the government.
"We hope to finish the coalition framework within the next day or two," he added. Addressing the shrinking number of portfolios left available for Likud members, Netanyahu said that "Likud members, maybe more than anyone else, have demonstrated personal and national responsibility, and a level of restrain unheard-of in Israeli politics, and I know how hard it is."
Knesset Member Gideon Sa'ar, chairman of the Likud faction, who heads the party's coalition negotiation team, told his peers that the Likud has been able to strike a deal with Habayit Hayehudi party just moment before the faction was called into session.
