Liberman quashes idea of joining coalition

Yisrael Beytenu party leader MK Avigdor Liberman on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that he is considering bringing his party into the coalition.

Liberman had said the previous day in a Facebook post that he would join the Netanyahu government if another 1,000 homes were approved for construction in the settlement city of Ma’ale Adumim.

In an interview with Israel Radio, Liberman, the former foreign minister, explained that the demand was in addition to a list of policies the government would have to adopt before he would even consider joining the coalition.

“It is not just about housing units,” he said, and listed “fundamental principles that are supposed to represent the whole national camp, such as the Jewish state bill.”

The controversial bill aims to enshrine Israel’s Jewish status in the constitution, but opponents say it alienates Israel’s large Arab minority.

“The prime minister is always demanding from the Palestinians and the world that they recognize the Jewish state, but is unprepared to enact this law in the current Knesset,” Liberman said. “So how can you ask others to do it?”

He listed other demands as a condition for his support of the government.

“There is also building in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and the national draft, conversion, bringing down the Hamas government — all of these things are an integral part of the national camp position. Therefore, this government is not a nationalistic government; it is just a survivalist government — all they are interested in is dividing up the spoils.

“I could have walked into the Foreign Ministry on a red carpet,” he said, alluding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing offer to reappoint Liberman foreign minister. “That is what I was originally offered. I think that a government that promised dozens of times… to build housing units [in Ma’ale Adumim], and then didn’t give approval for even one apartment new to be built, can’t be trusted.”

On Tuesday Liberman wrote on his Facebook page 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.

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, and described Netanyahu, whose previous coalition he had joined, as ineffectual and suffering from a kind of “political paranoia.”

He further 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.

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

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.