Liberman: Joining Herzog-led coalition a possibility

Foreign Minister and head of the Yisrael Beytenu party Avigdor Liberman said Saturday that his faction was not looking for political mergers but was also not ruling out sitting in a government coalition headed by the Labor Party’s Isaac Herzog or by the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, after the March 2015 elections.

Liberman indicated that his relations with Netanyahu may not be “ideal,” following his criticism of the PM’s handling of this summer’s 50-day conflict with Hamas and his undoing of the merger of their parties that saw them run on a joint list in the January 2013 elections. But “this approach, to dismiss someone just because of your personal relationship with them, is wrong. One must be matter-of-fact,” he said.

Liberman said that he did not “rule out Herzog or Netanyahu” as a coalition partner after the elections.

Speaking at a cultural event in Tel Aviv Saturday, the foreign minister hinted at tough disagreements with the prime minister, particularly during Operation Protective Edge, but added that he was not in the “anyone but Bibi” camp, a reference to a growing sentiment among rival politicians and some in the Israeli public who call to vote for anyone but Netanyahu, no matter what faults the prime minister’s rivals may have.

Liberman said his party was not looking to make political alliances ahead of the March 17 vote and was intent on going it alone, in the hopes of repeating its success in the 2009 elections, when it garnered 15 seats.

His remarks came amid reports the Yesh Atid party headed by Yair Lapid was courting both him and the leader of the newly founded Kulanu party, Moshe Kahlon, a popular former Likud minister, for a possible union.

Liberman also criticized the highly publicized merger between Herzog’s Labor party and former justice minister Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party, saying the union was “missing something.”

In a bid to form a large center-left bloc to challenge Netanyahu, Herzog-and Livni agreed to merge their parties and share the premiership (“rotating” after two years) should they form the next government, an agreement which Liberman said was lacking character.

“Let’s talk about what they propose, what solutions they offer. The media is doing a dishonest job [of covering the merger]. It doesn’t delve deeper into what they are offering,” Liberman said.

“I belong to the real nationalist camp,” he went on. “I don’t run away from problems and I don’t sweep them under the rug. We must be responsible and serious. Not everything is [about] slogans. We’re being dragged into [a battle of] labels. There is no right and left. There are serious people who are not dragged into situations and there are those who are,” he said, in an apparent dig at Netanyahu, whom he accused of being dragged into Operation Protective Edge by not initiating firmer action against Hamas.

“During Protective Edge I said we mustn’t be drawn in. But we were, we didn’t initiate. I said: Go all the way, don’t be wusses,” he said using an old Hebrew slang word “laflaf,” which generally means nerd.

On Thursday, Yesh Atid MK Meir Cohen revealed that Lapid and Liberman held talks in recent weeks to discuss the possibility of a merger deal between their parties, adding that Kahlon was considering joining forces with them.

However, both Yisrael Beytenu and Kulanu later each issued denials of the reports, insisting that there were no merger negotiations between the two parties.

The Yesh Atid party currently holds 19 seats in the Knesset, while Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu has 13. According to a recent Knesset Channel poll, Yesh Atid would drop to 12 seats in the upcoming election, and Yisrael Beytenu would receive 10.

Lapid is said to be especially trying to push Kahlon into agreeing to a merger between their two parties to form a strong centrist bloc ahead of the elections.

According to a recent poll conducted by Yesh Atid, a union with Kahlon’s nascent Kulanu Party would yield between 24 and 28 mandates, Channel 10 reported Friday. The Livni-Herzog merger would also result in 24 seats, compared with Netanyahu’s rightist Likud at 23, according to a Channel 2 poll this week.

Kahlon’s Kulanu Party is expected to garner 10 seats on its own, according to early polls.

A previous Channel 10 report said Lapid, Liberman and Kahlon have been discussing a potential alliance for weeks.

While that report indicated that the chances were slim to none that the three parties would formally and fully join forces, it said that the three could cooperate in other ways, including presenting a united front on whom to recommend for the premiership following the elections, and agreeing not to target each other during the campaign in the run-up to the March 17 election.

According to an early Channel 10 poll, a trilateral alliance between the parties would win 33 seats.