MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Netanyahu adds Defense to his portfolio in move to fend off motion of censorship

Is Prime Minister Netanyahu maneuvering in domestic politics or does he have a plan to deal with Gaza rockets?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken up the duties of defense minister, following Avigdor Liberman’s resignation, he announced Sunday evening as he added it was not “time to play politics.”

“We are in the midst of a military campaign, and you don’t leave during a campaign, you don’t play with politics,” said Netanyahu during a speech at the Defense Ministry, which was undeniably but not explicitly aimed at both Liberman and at Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has demanded the defense minister’s job as a condition for staying in the ruling coalition ”so that [he] could return Israel to winning again.”

“The security of the state is above all else,” Netanyahu said. “There is no place for politics or personal considerations,” when it comes to Israel’s security,“ he added.

Bennett's Jewish Home party secures, Netanyahu’s ruling coalition 61 of the total 120 Knesset seats with which to survive a potential no-confidence motion. Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked were said to be planning to step down Monday morning.

Analysts estimate an election seems inevitable at this point, after a failed Gaza operation, followed by Hamas shooting more rockets in one day than ever before, the subsequent ceasefire and Liberman's resignation.

Netanyahu’s reference to a possible, secret military operation – a rumour that has popped up in the media several times since the ceasefire was declared – was highly unusual, considering that it is not supposed to be public knowledge.

“You are only seeing a partial picture of the ongoing operation we are engaged in,” he said, adding that, “I will not say tonight when we will act and what we will do… but I have a clear plan,” said Netanyahu who invoked his days in the Sayeret Matkal elite operations unit and his “years of having ordered many military operations” as prime minister to justify himself as the best choice for the defense position.

Observers believe Netanyahu is using the tactic known as ”gevald,“ a Yiddish expression of alarm, which in the political context means he is trying to scare people. It has worked before. In the weeks ahead of the 2015 election, the term “gevald campaign” was coined to describe Netanyahu going to just about every radio and TV station to make his case to the public, pleading that if they vote for smaller right-wing parties, the Likud will lose. In the end, despite the final election polls showing the Likud and Zionist Union being neck and neck, the Likud won 30 seats.

Liberman last Wednesday announced his resignation as defense minister because the prime minister had accepted an informal truce with Hamas, and slammed Netanyahu for “failing to instill Israel’s deterrence” against the Islamist terror group. “What happened yesterday, the ceasefire, together with the deal with Hamas, is a capitulation to terror. There is no other way of explaining it,” Liberman told reporters on Wednesday of the ceasefire deal.

“What we’re doing now as a state is buying short-term quiet, with the price being severe long-term damage to national security,” Liberman said, adding that early elections should be held “as soon as possible.”

But Netanyahu rebutted him: “It would be both unnecessary and incorrect to go to elections.” He added that “we need to do everything we can to prevent repeating these mistakes,” he added.

Netanyahu was rumoured to be planning to appoint a foreign minister from his own Likud Party. Currently, Netanyahu himself heads Foreign Affairs, Defense, Health, and Aliyah (immigration) and Integration.