Netanyahu meets Edelstein over comments seen as imperiling coalition

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein, following the comments made by the veteran Likud lawmaker which reportedly caused the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox members to reconsider their participation in the government.

According to the Ynet news site, Edelstein was spotted entering the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem less than a day after a harsh phone call between the two, in which Netanyahu warned him that his promise to advance an ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill only “with broad agreement” threatened to topple the government.

Following Edelstein’s statement, multiple Hebrew media outlets reported that the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties were weighing leaving the government while remaining in the coalition.

The meeting also comes only hours after Edelstein appeared to assert his independence from the coalition on the issue of Israel Defense Forces enlistment, delaying a vote on a Defense Ministry-backed “draft Security Service Law” due to what he said was a failure to reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.

Those close to Netanyahu have been harshly critical of Edelstein, Ynet reports, quoting a senior Likud official alleging that “there is complete coordination between Edelstein and [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant on the dissolution of the government and bringing elections forward to November.”

Speaking during this morning’s meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Edelstein said that he has no interest in passing a law “on the bayonets of the coalition.”

“I have no personal, factional, party or coalition interest in passing it on. Either we’ll agree on something or not, but we’re all together,” he said.