The deal with Yisrael Beitenu precipitated the resignation of the well-respected defence minister Moshe Yaalon, not only from the ministry, but also from the Knesset, citing “difficult disagreements on moral and professional matters” with Mr Netanyahu and attacking the “extreme and unsafe elements that have taken over Israel and the Likud Party”.
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Lieberman’s spokesman said the deal would be signed in parliament, at 1330 IST. But Mr. Netanyahu pivoted to discussions with Mr. Lieberman after coalition talks with Mr. Herzog broke down.
Resigning last Friday, Yaalon said he no longer had faith in the Israeli Prime Minister and warned the government had been taken over by “extremist and risky elements”. But Lieberman’s supporters view him as a politician who says out loud what other people think but will not say.
The Soviet-born party leader, who lives in an Israeli-built illegal settlement, has already made extremist comments towards Palestinians’ and the rest of the Arab world.
Netanyahu said that “we are joining hands now to march Israel forward”.
In 2001, he advocated bombing the Aswan Dam in Egypt, accusing Israel’s Arab neighbor of supporting a Palestinian uprising.
Responding to criticism of Lieberman and his party, Netanyahu’s office said that hard-line politicians have gotten further with Palestinians because Israelis feel confident security concerns will be front and center of any negotiations.
“The defense minister is, in a sense, the “prime minister of Judea and Samaria”, Peretz said, using a biblical term for the West Bank.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is defending his predecessor Yehuda Weinstein against claims he dragged his feet investigating allegations of wrongdoings involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s financing for trips overseas. He is Mr. Zigzag.
But he was not a major figure in the army and Netanyahu’s Likud party recently labeled him “a man whose closest experience to a bullet whistling by his ear is a tennis ball flying by”. He claimed the coalition has been “opportunist” and not “nationalist” and said he and his party had chosen principles over ministerial portfolios.
He split with Netanyahu a year later, starting the Yisrael Beiteinu party in 1999.
He has served in many government positions, including twice as foreign minister under Netanyahu.
Liberman supports a hard line in negotiations with Palestinians for a two-state solution, insisting that any final status agreement be part of a broader deal that includes normalized relations with Arab states. Other right-wing groups called for stopping the “illegal EU-sponsored Palestinian construction in West Bank”, and expanding settlement construction. “That means he’s accepted a two-state solution”. Netanyahu spoke nearly every day in the past week about the new government’s commitment to the peace process and about his desire to resume the negotiations with the Palestinians. “My policy hasn’t changed”.
Netanyahu vowed to “pursue every avenue for peace”, while Lieberman promised a “reasonable policy”. Or he can treat the opportunity as an extended electioneering period ahead of the next poll, in which he tries to push the government rightwards so as to win the reputation as the true leader of the Israeli right. Concerns have increased that his appointment to a significant government post may herald a new era of oppression against the Palestinians, and a more belligerent policy toward regional powers like Iran.
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Netanyahu once more called on the head of the opposition, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, to join the coalition in a unity government.
