Cover story in Issue 23, March 2, 2009 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.

Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu wins 27 seats
Photo: AP , JRep

The day after Israel's inconclusive February 10 election, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the stridently anti-Arab Yisrael Beiteinu party, emerged as the kingmaker.

Minutes after the vote count was completed, he was invited to a meeting with Kadima leader Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to talk about possible cooperation, although much of his radical nationalistic rhetoric and platform is anathema to her party's centrist constituency. And he was also the first party leader invited to hold preliminary coalition talks with the Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu a few hours later.

The swift overtures to Lieberman were hardly surprising. With both Livni and Netanyahu claiming victory, Yisrael Beiteinu's 15 seats could determine which of the two becomes Israel's next prime minister.

Livni's claim is based on the fact that Kadima won the most seats, 28 to the Likud's 27; Netanyahu's on the fact that the Likud-led right-wing religious bloc commands a majority of 65 in the newly elected 120-member Knesset. But without Lieberman in the right-wing religious column that number would be down to only 50, and Livni's cause would be significantly enhanced.

In both meetings, Lieberman laid down four conditions Yisrael Beiteinu, mainly supported by immigrants from the former Soviet Union, would insist on before joining any coalition: A commitment to topple the Hamas government in Gaza; a change in the electoral system to create greater stability and strengthen the executive branch; the introduction of a form of civil marriage that would enable persons not halakhically Jewish to marry in Israel, for the benefit of around 300,000 Russian immigrants in this category; and passage of a new law stipulating that all Israelis, including Arabs, either serve in the IDF or volunteer for national service or be stripped of their citizenship - becoming permanent residents without the right to vote or be elected.

Then, in a take-it-or-leave-it gesture, Lieberman, who has extensive business interests in Eastern Europe, flew off on what he said was a vacation to Belarus, a country not known for its tourist attractions, leaving the follow-up coalition feelers in the hands of Stas Misezhnikov, a respected Yisrael Beiteinu legislator who made his mark in the outgoing Knesset as head of the key Finance Committee.

Lieberman's business dealings have attracted police attention, and he has been under investigation for various suspected offenses for years, a circumstance which would prevent his appointment to several key cabinet positions.

With its hawkish views on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Yisrael Beiteinu would seem to be ideologically closer to the right-wing Likud than to the centrist Kadima, although Lieberman's goal is more to reduce Israel's Arab population than to keep the "Greater Israel," and to this end he is even prepared to hand Arab-populated areas of the country, including parts of Jerusalem, over to the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, Lieberman has openly stated that, all things being equal, he would rather go with Netanyahu.

The Likud leader, however, has a prior commitment to include the ultra-Orthodox Shas as a senior partner in any coalition he forms. Indeed, it was because of promises from the Likud that Shas refused to join a Livni-led administration last October, sparking the February election. But Shas is adamantly opposed to key Yisrael Beiteinu demands: changing the electoral system in a way that would favor the larger parties; and marital solutions for non-halakhic Jews, which it suspects could ultimately undermine rabbinical control of marriage and divorce in Israel. It is also adamantly opposed to giving up parts of Jerusalem.

Moreover, bad blood between Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas spilled over in the election campaign, when Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef described a vote for Lieberman as no less than "a vote for the devil" and a sure way of losing one's place in heaven, and Lieberman vowed to get even. Moreover, for Lieberman's mainly secular immigrant constituents, the Shas party, which gave them a hard time when it controlled the Interior Ministry, is anathema.

Unlike Netanyahu, Livni has no commitment to Shas or any other religious party. On the contrary, Kadima is also committed to changing the electoral system and introducing a form of civil marriage, and on these two key issues Lieberman would almost certainly get a better deal from Livni. He also has a healthier working relationship her; whereas he and Netanyahu have been at odds ever since 1998 when Lieberman, once Netanyahu's right-hand man, resigned as director general of the Prime Minister's Office, and left the Likud to found Yisrael Beiteinu soon afterwards.

As for the other two conditions, both Netanyahu and Livni would have no problem declaring the toppling of Hamas a goal, and, while neither would back Lieberman's proposed citizenship law, both would allow him to table and vote for it. Former tourism minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, a former deputy police chief who is 4th on the Yisrael Beiteinu slate, maintains that the party's dilemma is genuine, and denies that it is only stringing Livni along to get more from Netanyahu. "True, we would prefer a [right-wing] national government, but if it doesn't work out, we will have no qualms about joining a coalition with Livni," he tells The Report.

To keep its options open, Yisrael Beiteinu will probably not recommend either Netanyahu or Livni for prime minister when President Shimon Peres consults with the parties on whom to confer the task of forming the next government after the official results are gazetted, beginning February 18. This would compromise Netanyahu's claim that he should be given the job on the basis of the right-wing religious parties having won a majority of Knesset seats. In fact, Lieberman's party might even try to use its power to impose the formation of a national unity coalition on Netanyahu and Livni.