Liberman: I’ll join coalition if major settlement expanded

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman said on Tuesday that were the government to approve construction of more than 1,000 apartments in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, he would consider joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

Liberman made the comments after he visited Ma’ale Adumim, which lies seven kilometers (4.3 miles) east of Jerusalem. A week ago, in an interview with The Times of Israel, Liberman castigated the prime minister and said he would not join the coalition with its current platform.

“One of the reasons we are not partners in the current government is the prime minister’s refusal to fulfill his obligations and build in Ma’ale Adumim,” he wrote on Facebook. “During the visit I also met with Mayor Benny Kashriel, who is a Likud member, and I told him that [should] the prime minister and defense minister sign an approval to build 1,000 new housing units in Ma’ale Adumim, we would seriously consider joining the government.”

Liberman dropped a political bombshell in May when chose not to join Netanyahu’s coalition, citing his objections to deals signed with other partners. Instead, he took his Yisrael Beytenu party’s six parliamentary seats into the opposition.

“There is no doubt that in any arrangement, Ma’ale Adumim will remain part of Israel and this is why there is no reason not to build there,” he added, referring to a possible peace deal that would see land adjustments to keep larger settlement blocs inside Israel.

“I hope this government returns to its senses and goes back to building in the area.”

Liberman’s decision to refrain from joining the Netanyahu coalition left him in an awkward position as the leader of an opposition party that is more right wing than some of the parties in the coalition. The surprise move condemned Netanyahu to the narrowest of coalitions, with only 61 members in the 120-seat Knesset.

Since joining the opposition, Liberman, who served as foreign minister in the previous government under Netanyahu, has been openly critical of the prime minister.

During a Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting at the beginning of the month, Liberman criticized Netanyahu for his wavering politics.

“Netanyahu is not right-wing or left-wing, but Mr. Zigzag, the world champion of zigzags,” Liberman said, using an Israeli term similar to a flip-flop in American politics. “Yisrael Beytenu has no problem with the Likud; we have a big problem with Netanyahu.”

In an interview with The Times of Israel last week, Liberman castigated Netanyahu as ineffectual and suffering from a kind of “political paranoia.” The former foreign minister accused Netanyahu of being “all talk” on everything from tackling Hamas to settlement-building to preventing Iran’s nuclear drive, and said the prime minister was solely interested in his own survival. Liberman also said he would not join the government with its current platform.

The general concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — which has been supported by both Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel with borders negotiated around Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.