Liberman says ready to sit in opposition if issues on religion and state not solved

Hours before the swearing-in ceremony for the 21st Knesset, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman says his party could sit in the opposition if his policy demands are not met by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.

“Everyone agrees that we need to establish a right wing national government as soon. As possible. No one has strength for another election,” he says in his party’s first press conference of the new parliament.

“But we will not give in on the the demands we have made,” he stresses, reiterating that his party would not join a coalition led by Netanyahu unless his demands are met on security, immigration, and religion and state issues, in a government likely to be dominated by the religious right.

Liberman says that his number one priority was setting the state pension and disability benefits at 3,800 NIS ($1,050) per month, 70 percent of the current minimum wage. But he admits that his party’s position on religion and state issues presented a bigger obstacle.

“There are many obstacles. Many, many obstacles,” he says.

Liberman, whose base of supporters is largely made up of secular immigrants from the former Soviet Union, campaigned on opposing “religious coercion,” and supports public transportation and allowing mini-markets to remain open on Shabbat, in addition to ending the Chief Rabbinate’s control over marriage and divorce, and passing the enlistment bill.

“We support and want a Jewish state but we oppose and will not accept religious coercion,” he says.

— Raoul Wootliff