Netanyahu: Security challenges necessitate govt. with ‘wide shoulders’

Israel needs a government with “wide shoulders” able to make “hard decisions” in the wake of mounting security threats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the first cabinet meeting held in weeks.

The Middle East is in the midst of an upheaval, Netanyahu told members of his transitional government, pointing to the current unrest in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. And Iran is “trampling” in each of those theaters, he said.

Netanyahu’s comments came just hours before he is scheduled to meet Blue and White leader Benny Gantz to discuss the possibility of forming a unity government.

Israel’s power has served it up until now in the face of all the regional threats, the prime minister said, but it must be strengthened now as the country faces new challenges.

“This obligates difficult decisions’” he said, adding that his warnings and those of Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi regarding threats from the North are not “spin” but something that reflects the reality and the “challenges of the present and the near future.”

“We need to make difficult decisions that obligate a government with wide shoulders, and that is the importance of creating a wide unity government, he said, adding that this was not a “political question,” but a matter of state security of the highest degree.

“I hope we can move toward this goal in the coming days,” he said. “That was my goal immediately after the elections, and remains my goal. That is what the State of Israel needs at the current time.”

Netanyahu opened the meeting by wishing well to all the university and college students starting their studies on Sunday, noting that his youngest son, Avner, will begin studying archaeology in Jerusalem, even though he had hoped his son would start a degree in Biblical research.