Finance Minister Naftali Bennett stood behind the government's austerity budget Sunday. Speaking with Arutz Sheva, he also took pride in the decisions to allow privatization of port services.

"It's not an easy decision but it was a vital decision," Bennett said. "We've got a big deficit and we have to close it. And what we did on Thursday is made a tough decision, to cut expenses, to raise taxes, to close that deficit, so we don't pass this deficit on to our children.

"Today, we made a very important decision to open up competition in our ports; this is a day of history and we have to create more and more competition on all the vital areas in our economy.

"I think we have a lot of work to do," he added. "We have to open up our economy, create competition, break monopolies and not allow unions to monopolize us."