A rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for Israeli officials to form a unity government, kicking off a negotiation that threatens to end the longest-serving prime minister’s career.
“We are in an emergency situation,” former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of the main figures in a three-party rivalry, said after polls closed in Israel on Tuesday. “I would even recommend, this evening, to the president of Israel — who is now the key figure — not to wait even until we actually see all the final results, not even to wait for those official results to be published.”
Lieberman, the right-wing political leader who refused to agree to a power-sharing arrangement with Netanyahu after the April 9 elections, was a major beneficiary of the repeat elections. Initial exit polls show his Yisrael Beytenu party winning as many as ten seats; he need only five to block the Netanyahu’s bid to secure a victory in the race for the prime minister’s office earlier this year.
“The center-right tends to have a comfortable majority,” Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner. “So it’s not a question of which kind of government you’re going to get, but it really is going to be a question of who gets to form that government?”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has the authority to answer that question, which is why Lieberman identified him as the “key figure” going forward. Rivlin offered Netanyahu the first chance to form a government after the April elections left the prime minister’s Likud party with the single-largest share of seats in the Israeli Knesset. Likud’s 36-seat bloc barely exceeded the 35 seats secured by the Blue and White Party, led by former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Benny Gantz.
Those results left Netanyahu still needing to form a coalition with smaller right-leaning parties in order to secure a majority of the 120-seat Knesset, a task that he was expected to complete with relative ease. But Lieberman, who leads a secular nationalist party and resigned previously from Netanyahu’s cabinet due to policy disputes, rejected an offer to form a coalition unless the prime minister promised to strip seminary students of their traditional exemption from military service.
“There is both personal politics involved, in terms of his falling out with Bibi — and there was never really much to fall out from,” Towson University’s Robert Rook, a Middle East historian and close observer of Israeli politics, told the Washington Examiner. “He knows that he can mobilize a lot of Israelis across the political spectrum by focusing on the power of religious parties and that’s something that will get a response across a great deal of the Israeli political spectrum.”
Netanyahu could not agree to this condition without losing essential support from the Ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition, so he called another election, rather than have Rivlin give another power player a chance to form a government. Lieberman’s election night statement is an attempt to prevent Netanyahu from using the same escape hatch again. Rivlin, in parallel, made clear that he also opposes a third election.
“The president will be guided by the need to form a government in Israel as quickly as possible and to implement the will of the people as expressed in the results of the election, as well as the need to avoid a third general election,” Rivlin said after the polls closed. “Accordingly, the president will allocate the role of forming a government after consultation and discussion with representatives of the factions and the leaders of the relevant parties.”
Netanyahu has been the colossus of Israeli politics over the last decade, holding the prime minister’s office since 2009 after a previous stint from 1996 to 1999. He has been fortified by the way the Israeli electorate has shifted the right on the security issues that are his bread and butter. And he has enjoyed major diplomatic successes since President Trump took office, especially the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. But he is vulnerable nonetheless, shadowed by corruption allegations and two challengers who may have the combined strength to topple him.
“I am asking now for your confidence in order to complete the historic task and fortify the State of Israel’s borders and security forever,” Netanyahu wrote in a closing appeal to voters.
That appeal has been undermined by scandals, as Israel’s attorney general announced in February that he intends to indict Netanyahu on charges of trading on his office to elicit gifts and favorable media coverage. And as Netanyahu’s political margins have worn thing, he has turned to political tactics — such as forming an alliance with a fringe Jewish party that favors expelling Arabs from Israel — have alienated some voters. “Netanyahu may have over bet the far right and the security situation,” Rook surmised.
Lieberman wants Rivlin to begin a three-party negotiation with Benny Gantz. “I would say unofficially he can already start inviting people this Friday,” Lieberman said. “What’s better than inviting people for a Friday lunchtime?”
Maybe nothing could be better, for Lieberman. But Netanyahu has little margin for error. “It’s possible that today, when we see the results, Bibi will no longer be the head of the largest party of the country,” Ottolenghi said. “Even if that happens, it will not be by a large margin. So the coalition politics start tomorrow. It will be interesting to watch.”
