BIBI’S COALITION DRAMA
PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu offered Avigdor Lieberman, the former foreign minister, the position of defence minister in his government on Wednesday.
The offer was as part of a deal between Mr Netanyahu’s Likud and Mr Lieberman’s right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, and came after days of feverish speculation that the new member of the coalition would be the centrist grouping Zionist Union.
On Wednesday morning, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog was still planning to present his coalition deal with Mr Netanyahu to the Labour convention next week, despite the opposition of a majority of his MKs.
Then came a surprise announcement by Mr Lieberman in which he called on the prime minister to hold open negotiations with his party.
Both Yisrael Beiteinu and Zionist Union were mentioned as potential members of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition following the elections last year.
However, Mr Lieberman decided not to join up, and secret talks between rep- resentatives of Likud and Labour leaders have been ongoing for nearly a year.
In March it emerged that Mr Herzog was being investigated over allegations of illegal campaign financing. Police failed to find sufficient evidence to continue the probe and, until Wednesday, it seemed the coalition deal was back on. Mr Herzog was to serve as foreign minister, although there remained disagreements over the government’s commitment to a two-state solution.
Mr Herzog was quick to take the opportunity to publicly back a speech on Tuesday by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in which the Arab leader called on Israel and the Palestinians not to miss “the real opportunity to reach a peace agreement on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative and the new French initiative”. Almost simultaneously, Mr Netanyahu published his own endorsement of Mr alSisi’s speech.
Only two days earlier, in a meeting in Jerusalem with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the prime minister had turned down the French plan for an international peace conference, saying that Israel prefers direct negotiations.
The fate of the French initiative is unclear. On Tuesday, a preliminary meeting of foreign ministers planned for May 30 in Paris was postponed due to “scheduling problems”.
If the conference ever takes place, it seems doubtful that Mr Herzog will be representing Israel there. He announced on Wednesday afternoon that he was suspending talks with Mr Netanyahu and there are now calls within his party for his resignation after the “humiliation” of the talks.
Meanwhile, if Mr Lieberman does become the new defence minister, it will mean an upheaval within Likud. The move will be interpreted by many within the party as at least partly the result of the recent tension between the prime minister and the current defence minister, Moshe Yaalon.