Yisrael Beytenu to formulate stance on ousting Knesset speaker next week

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman announced Sunday that his right-wing, secular party would make a decision next week on whether to support the removal of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein of Likud, in a move that would allow lawmakers to advance legislation barring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming the next coalition.

“With regards to the Knesset speaker, a decision will only be made after the president has entrusted the task of assembling the government to one of the candidates,” Liberman said in a statement.

President Reuven Rivlin will begin consultations with parties after receiving the official results of last week’s election from the Central Elections Committee on Tuesday. However, he is not expected to make a decision on whom to choose as a potential prime minister until a week later, on March 17, the same day Netanyahu’s criminal trial begins.

Yisrael Beytenu is expected to recommend to Rivlin that Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz be tasked with forming a government, according to Hebrew media reports Thursday that were neither confirmed nor denied by the party.

With Liberman’s backing, Gantz could receive more recommendations than Netanyahu, complicating Rivlin’s choice of whom to give first shot at forming a government.

Though neither mustered majority Knesset support in Monday’s election, Netanyahu has the backing of 58 MKs and his Likud is the largest party. But were Liberman and the entire Joint List of mainly Arab parties to recommend Gantz, he would have 62 backers. Even if the three-member Balad faction of the Joint List alliance chose not to back Gantz, as happened in September, the Blue and White leader would still have 59.

Liberman’s reported move to back Gantz is also aimed at giving Blue and White control over the Knesset speaker position, allowing the opposition parties to advance legislation that would prevent a person facing criminal charges from forming a government — effectively disqualifying Netanyahu from doing so, the Haaretz daily reported Thursday.

Blue and White is seeking to oust Edelstein to ensure he doesn’t torpedo such a bill. Its candidate to replace the longtime speaker is its member MK Meir Cohen.

Liberman and Gantz are scheduled to meet in the Kfar Maccabiah hotel in Ramat Gan on Monday to further discuss coordination between their parties.

Earlier Sunday Liberman laid out five preconditions for joining a potential coalition, consisting primarily of a set of secularist demands that have no chance of being accepted by Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies but were quickly accepted by Blue and White chief Gantz.

Once a close ally of Netanyahu, Liberman has been a thorn in the prime minister’s side since May 2019, when his insistence on a secularist agenda during coalition-building talks with Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox allies following the April election scuppered the negotiations and led Netanyahu to disband the Knesset and call a new vote.

Relations quickly grew acrimonious, with Netanyahu accusing Liberman of thwarting the formation of a right-wing government and joining the left (though Liberman’s political positions remain hawkish), as well as attempting — unsuccessfully — to destroy his base of support in the subsequent September vote. Liberman instead grew from five to eight Knesset seats. Last week Liberman won seven Knesset seats.

It is not yet clear how Liberman and Gantz hope to form a government to remove Netanyahu from power. Both have rejected support from the predominantly Arab Joint List alliance and its 15 seats. The Arab parties have repeatedly been drawn as an illegitimate political partner by majority Jewish parties for their anti-Zionist positions. Liberman himself has termed Arab lawmakers “a fifth column.”

But Gantz and Liberman could be forced to rely on Arab support, first to ensure Gantz receives a majority of recommendations from lawmakers that will lead Rivlin to task him with forming a government, and then as possible outside support for a minority government led by Gantz.

The Joint List’s most extreme faction, Balad, on Sunday also released a set of conditions for the alliance to back Gantz.

Channel 12 news reported Saturday night that the current plan was for Blue and White to form a minority government alongside Labor-Gesher-Meretz (totaling 40 of 120 Knesset seats), with outside support from Yisrael Beytenu (7) and the Joint List (15).

Gantz and his allies would frame such a government as an emergency government to end the political stalemate that has paralyzed Israel for nearly a year now, which would leave its door open to any members of Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc who wish to join.

Liberman has told confidants there is “no chance” he will join a government led by Netanyahu, claiming the incumbent prime minister was behind multiple legal complaints filed against him and his children last year, Channel 12 reported Saturday. The network cited those complaints as the cause for the growing distaste Liberman has shown for Netanyahu over the past year and his apparent resolve to oust him from power.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.