Israeli minister won’t join Netanyahu
JERUSA LEM • Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, announced Monday that he would not be part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s next government, saying that the coalition being formed was “opportunist” and not “nationalist.”
The decision by Lieberman, a polarizing ultranationalist whose calls for beheading terrorists and transferring Arab citizens to Palestinian territory have prompted outrage, is unlikely to block Netanyahu from building a coalition before the deadline Wednesday. But it would leave the prime minister with a razor-thin majority in Parliament, 61 of 120 seats, unless he reaches beyond the conservative and religious parties to form a unity government with the centre-left Zionist Union.
Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party won six seats in the March 17 election, said, “our dilemma was principles and not chairs,” referring to ministerial positions, according to Haaretz, a leading Israeli daily newspaper. “I am happy that we chose principles.”
He complained that the new government would not significantly expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, pass the so-called nationality bill emphasizing Israel’s Jewish character or commit to uprooting the Islamist movement Hamas from the Gaza Strip. He also accused Netanyahu of preparing to join forces with the Zionist Union, which won 24 seats in the election.
However Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union, Netanyahu’s chief challenger in the election, reiterated Monday that he planned to lead “a strong and fighting opposition.”
Netanyahu’s Likud Party has already signed coalition agreements with the new Kulanu party whose head, Moshe Kahlon, is expected to become finance minister — and with United Torah Judaism, one of two ultra-Orthodox factions.
The rightist Jewish Home party, which opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Shas, which also represents the Orthodox, are still expected to join the Netanyahu government.
“Netanyahu’s in trouble at this point, because he doesn’t have a government, and we’re two days away,” said Mitchell Barak, a political consultant in Jerusalem. “I think Netanyahu prefers a unity government, and this may force him into doing that because this right-wing government would be way too narrow.
“He can’t really be at 61 seats; it’s almost impossible to govern that way — any one part can bring it down, any two members of Parliament can,” Barak added. “The bestcase scenario is to bring in the Zionist Union, which I think he wants to do because not only can he govern better, but it helps him face the international community when he has the centre and the centre-left when it comes to peace issues.”