May 30, 2016: Netanyahu says hello Liberman, goodbye Ya’alon

By Michael Regenstreif

As I write – on May 20 just before we go to press – Israel’s governing coalition under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a state of flux. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is on his way out with former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman his presumptive replacement.

This turn of events in Israeli politics – indications of which began to surface on May 18 – came as a surprise because there had been reports over the past several weeks that Netanyahu and Israel’s opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, chair of the centre-left Zionist Union (a joint electoral list bringing together Herzog’s Labor Party and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah Party), were close to an agreement that would have brought the Zionist Union into the coalition with Herzog becoming foreign minister (a post that Netanyahu has held onto himself since 2015).

Bringing Herzog into the coalition was seen as a move that would signal Netanyahu’s seriousness about his desire for direct negotiations with the Palestinians that would hopefully lead to a two-state solution. It would also have stabilized Netanyahu’s coalition whose razor-thin majority has stood at just 61 of the Knesset’s120 seats.

However, it appears that at the same time it was openly acknowledged he was negotiating with Herzog, he was also secretly talking with Liberman whose right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party – with its six Knesset seats – has sat on the opposition benches since the 2015 election.

Liberman brought several demands to the table. Among them was instituting capital punishment for convicted terrorists. In the State of Israel’s 68-year history there have only been two executions: army officer Meir Tobianski on June 30, 1948 by firing squad after he was convicted of treason by court-martial during the War of Independence, and Adolf Eichmann on May 31, 1962 by hanging after he was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his central role in perpetrating the Holocaust.

Tobianski, it must be noted, was executed quickly with no right to appeal. A year later, evidence revealed he was not guilty and he was exonerated.

Liberman’s other main demand was that he replace Ya’alon as defense minister; a demand that Netanyahu accepted. With that acceptance, Ya’alon resigned from cabinet and from his seat in the Knesset.

Netanyahu said he regretted Ya’alon’s resignation and said he had offered to appoint him foreign minister.

In resigning, Ya’alon cited Netanyahu’s conduct during “recent developments” (presumably the negotiations that brought in Liberman), which demonstrated the prime minister’s “lack of trust” in him.

It would be hard – if not impossible – to make the case that Liberman is more qualified than Ya’alon to be defense minister. With rare exceptions, Israel’s defense ministers have enjoyed the confidence of Israel’s military because they have had distinguished military careers serving in the highest ranks of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Ya’alon, for example, rose to be the IDF chief-of-staff. Liberman, in contrast, served briefly in the IDF, attaining the rank of corporal, and has often been highly critical of the restraint shown by Israel’s military in difficult circumstances.

While it’s still much too early to know what all of the consequences of these developments will be, a few questions are obvious.

Will Herzog’s tenure as chair of the Zionist Union come to an end? His move toward joining Netanyahu’s coalition was not supported by many of the Zionist Union Knesset members and the result could only have embarrassed him.

As defense minister, Liberman assumes tremendous power in the West Bank. While Ya’alon was pragmatic and somewhat conciliatory with the Palestinians, Liberman has been seen to be much more hardline. Will the Palestinian Authority be able to work with him, for example, on day-to-day security cooperation?

And will there be an impact on Israel’s current negotiations with the U.S. for long-term defense aid? Ya’alon enjoyed generally good relations with the U.S. while Liberman, as foreign minister, did not.

What about Ya’alon’s political future? Will he be a formidable challenger to Netanyahu’s leadership within Likud? Or to Likud as the leader of a new, more moderate centre-right party?

“I have no intention of [permanently] leaving public life, and in the future, I will return as a candidate for national leadership,” he said in his resignation speech.

May 26, 2015: Netanyahu forms government with a narrow coalition

By Michael Regenstreif

With less than two hours to go until his time ran out at midnight on May 6, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally cobbled together the narrowest possible governing coalition following the March 17 election.

With the support of parties representing just 61 of the 120 Knesset seats, Netanyahu desperately needs to broaden his coalition or remain at risk of the government falling if it loses the support of just one or two MKs – a very real possibility given the hard feelings that linger after his election eve comments designed to draw support to his Likud Party at the expense of the other right wing parties. I wrote about Netanyahu’s comments in my column in the March 30 issue of the Bulletin.

After those comments, Likud did increase its seat count, thus keeping Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s Office, despite the surge of Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union in the pre-election polls. However, total support for all right-wing parties was about the same as it was in the 2013 election, so the other right-wing parties did lose seats and thus their hard feelings.

Among those with the hardest feelings is former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, who decided to take his six seats and sit in opposition.

In pulling together this minimalist coalition, Netanyahu made several Cabinet choices seen as worrisome by many. Firstly, there is not one minister envisaged as an advocate for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.

If Israel is perceived as intransigent on this issue, relations with the United States and the European Union will be further damaged. Even the Canadian government – Israel’s strongest supporter among Western governments – stressed the importance of the two-state solution in offering congratulations to Netanyahu on the swearing-in of his government in a statement issued by Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson on May 14.

“Canada has a warm and long-standing friendship with Israel, which is based on a shared commitment to the principles of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

“Our government will continue to strongly support Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself, by itself. Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered this message to the Israeli people in his historic address before the Israeli Knesset in January 2014. We also continue to support a bilaterally negotiated two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians based on a commitment to peace and mutual security,” said Nicholson.

Secondly, the religious parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – are back in Cabinet after being left out of the previous government. This means that recent reforms regarding haredi service in the Israel Defense Forces will surely be dialled back, religious affairs in Israel will remain in the unyielding control of the haredi Chief Rabbinate, and progress toward Judaic religious pluralism will be next to impossible.

The most polarizing of Netanyahu’s Cabinet appointments is surely that of Ayelet Shaked of Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party as justice minister.

The new justice minister has no training in law – her academic background is in electrical engineering and computer science – but she has an agenda that includes scaling back the power of the judiciary and limiting the power of Israel’s Supreme Court. And, while Israel’s previous justice minister, Tzipi Livni, led Israel’s negotiations aimed at a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Shaked is deeply opposed to the proposition.

According to reports, Netanyahu did not want Shaked in his Cabinet – let alone in such an important position – but her appointment was a last-minute concession to Bennett. If Bennett, who is now the education minister, had withdrawn the support of Jewish Home’s eight seats, Netanyahu could not have formed a government.

With a history of personal animosity between Shaked and Netanyahu, things may not go well. Between 2006 and 2008, while Netanyahu was opposition leader, Shaked was his office director. She quit in 2008, saying the once and future prime minister was impossible to work with. And, at the ceremony announcing his new Cabinet, Netanyahu reportedly refused to shake his new justice minister’s hand.

Unless Netanyahu can somehow broaden his coalition, we may well be watching another Israeli election campaign sooner than later. For now, he’s hanging onto the foreign minister’s portfolio as bait, hoping to lure in Herzog or Lieberman and their parties. So far, neither is biting.