Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he will step aside and allow Yamina leader Naftali Bennett to head a right-wing government for the first year of its tenure.
Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page that a right-wing government must not be foiled because of personal squabbles.
Bennett's participation is not sufficient to give the right-wing the majority needed to form a government and the support of the Islamist Ra'am party will still be needed but far-right Religious Zionist party leader Bezal'el Smotrich insists he will not join a government reliant on such support.
Smotrich was under constant and extreme pressure from Netanyahu's Likud and rabbis to reverse his stance.