Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s one-time right-hand man, is refusing to back either the prime minister or his rival, Benny Gantz, after an inconclusive general election left the Israeli premiership up in the air.
Lieberman, who leads the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu (Israel Our Home) party, said in a statement on Sunday that Netanyahu and Gantz should drop their “childish argument” and form a national unity government. He called on them to “flip a coin” to decide who serves as prime minister first.
The nearly-final general election results showed a deadlock between Gantz’s Blue and White (33 provisional seats out of parliament’s 120) and Netanyahu’s Likud (31 seats) – well below the 61 needed to secure a majority in parliament. So the future of the Israeli government is in the hands of smaller players.
In a landmark move, the Joint List, a cluster of primarily Arab Israeli parties that is set to become the third-biggest power with 13 votes, has decided to back Benny Gantz in a bid to block Netanyahu from securing another term. Its demands for Gantz are said to include halting home demolitions in unrecognised Arab communities, cancelling the law that enshrines Israel as the exclusive nation-state of the Jewish people, and resuming a peace process with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
While Gantz has yet to comment on a potential deal, siding with the Joint List would still not grant him the much-coveted Knesset majority, and Avigdor Lieberman, with his 10 projected seats, could become the game-changer.
Netanyahu, for his part, has formed an alliance with ultra-Orthodox parties which would see him at some 55 seats in parliament. The incumbent prime minister has offered Gantz a rotating premiership as a compromise, but the latter feels he is in a stronger position and refuses to join a Netanyahu-led government.
Lieberman – the former defence chief who quit Netanyahu’s cabinet due to his displeasure with a truce with Gaza’s Hamas – said that he would only support a “broad, liberal” national unity government comprising Likud, Blue and White, and his own Yisrael Beytenu. That government, in his vision, should include neither the ultra-Orthodox parties that back Netanyahu nor Gantz’s potential Arab allies.
“The Haredim [ultra-Orthodox] are political rivals, but not enemies. The Joint List are our enemies,” he said on Sunday. “Wherever they are, we will be on the other side.”
Lieberman is set to meet with Benny Gantz on Monday afternoon for talks.
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin earlier said that both Likud and Blue and White should be included in the future government as the two largest parties. Rivlin has invited Netanyahu and Gantz to meet at his residence on Monday to discuss the formation of a new government.
If no candidate is able to form a government, Israel would have to call another snap election, which would become its third this year.
