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Political Move Stifles Any Chance for Palestinian Peace Talks …
By merging with Liberman, Netanyahu challenges left and casts lot with right
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and fealty to his late father’s nationalist vision? Is he a true right-wing ideologue whose apparent concessions to Israeli-Palestinian peace are but feints?
Or is he merely a political survivor willing to do whatever it takes to stay in office, ideology be damned?
Last week’s surprise announcement that Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Avigdor Liberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party would merge their candidate slates in the upcoming election — but not merge their parties — offers some signs that the smart money is on the right-wingers.
The move deals a potential knockout blow to Netanyahu’s left-wing rivals and makes a third term for Netanyahu more likely than ever. Some polls show the two parties losing seats as a result of the deal, but even low estimates predict them to be the Knesset’s largest list.
Liberman’s nationalist agenda also will likely gain further traction in the next government. That agenda has included legislation requiring loyalty oaths for new non-Jewish Israeli citizens and a ban on settlement boycotts — moves that many Israeli and American Jewish critics have slammed as undemocratic.
“The real government reform starts now,” Liberman said at a news conference. “We advance to finish the work.”
Critics worry that with the merger, Netanyahu has unambiguously embraced Liberman’s hard-line domestic platform.
“The prime minister is essentially signaling that he has chosen the extremist, pro-settlement right, that he has chosen to walk in place, not to make progress in the diplomatic process,” Zehava Gal-On, head of the liberal Meretz party, told Israel’s Army Radio, according to Reuters.
Not that the Orthodox parties will be happy with the deal.
Avigdor Liberman, a secular immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Moldova, is one of Israel’s most prominent anti-haredi politicians. He wants Israel to allow civil marriage in addition to religious marriage, and he has railed against government privileges granted to the haredi Orthodox. The current coalition’s tensest moments came this summer when Liberman and the haredi Orthodox parties battled over whether to require army service for haredi Orthodox youths, who HAD previously received exemptions to study Torah.
In that battle, Netanyahu sided with the haredim, breaking up the committee assigned to draft a new military service law.
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