Liberman, Netanyahu to cooperate on judicial appointments

In a surprising move considering the ongoing acrimony between the two men, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman struck a deal Wednesday to cooperate in the selection of Supreme Court justices.

Under the agreement between the two former political allies, Netanyahu’s coalition will back the appointment of Yisrael Beytenu MK Robert Ilatov to the Judicial Appointments Committee. In return, Yisrael Beytenu, a member of the opposition, will back the Likud’s selection of its own MK Nurit Koren to the committee.

The deal is expected to guarantee a right-wing majority on the nine-member committee tasked with selecting Supreme Court Justices. The committee — comprising three MKs, two attorneys from the Israel Bar association, the president of the Supreme Court and two additional justices — requires a seven-vote majority to make an appointment. The MKs’ three-vote bloc could veto the appointment of a candidate to the Supreme Court deemed undesirable by Netanyahu’s government.

The newly inked deal also states that Yisrael Beytenu and Likud will vote together in electing MKs to other Knesset committees.

The announcement came one day after a Supreme Court Justice said that Netanyahu could not serve as prime minister and head other cabinet ministries at the same time.

Netanyahu, who has been holding the health, communications and foreign affairs ministries since his March reelection, was told by Justice Hanan Melcer on Tuesday that he must assign the cabinet posts to others if he wishes to continue as prime minister.

The prime minister’s critics have alleged that he was reserving the unassigned cabinet posts as leverage to lure political opponents to join his narrow governing coalition.

The deal marks the first significant cooperation between Netanyahu and Liberman, who has become an outspoken critic of the prime minister’s policies in recent months, in about a year.

The relationship between the former political allies, who ran together under a joint slate in the 2013 elections, deteriorated sharply over the last year, and culminated in May when Liberman announced he would not join Netanyahu’s coalition.

On Saturday, Liberman attacked Netanyahu’s security and foreign policies and predicted the prime minister’s government would not survive the 2015 calendar year.

The Yisrael Beytenu chairman accused Netanyahu of maintaining a weak stance toward terrorism and said the 51-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip last year led to the collapse of Israel’s ability to deter future aggression from enemies in the region.

“Netanyahu doesn’t want me in the government, he wants my votes — there is a substantial difference between the two,” he said.