Israel’s political arena is thrust into chaos as Defense Minister resigns
Israeli Defense Minister and former army Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon resigned from the government and from the parliament on Friday morning, following 36 hours of political turmoil in which his dismissal was widely expected.
One year into his fourth term as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself in a titanic struggle to stabilize his razor-thin coalition, which he maintains with a majority of a single vote, and to neutralize rivals within his party.
All in all, he has not done badly, though as the week draws to a close it is still unclear who will remain in his cabinet and who will leave, and whether his nominee for defense minister, former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman,57, of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beytenu Party, will withdraw the non-confidence motion it sponsored, claiming the “government has failed and must go.”
For Israelis, the week began with a barrage of rumors claiming that Netanyahu was in advanced secret negotiations with Labor Party chairman Yitzhak Herzog, with whom he hoped to establish a national unity government.
By the week’s end, Herzog had publicly repudiated Netanyahu for refusing to sign a coalition agreement, preferring, as Netanyahu has always done, to keep any agreements to the spoken word. At the same time, Herzog openly criticized his predecessor, Shelley Yachimovich, whom he berated for attempting to steer Labor to the hard left.
Netanyahu appeared to be in a state of limbo late Thursday evening. No changes have been publicly announced but neither are rumors being denied that the prime minister has fired Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, a former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, and replaced him with Lieberman, who has no military experience.
Rumors rife in Jerusalem hold that Ya’alon, a respected member of Netanyahu’s own party, the Likud, is to be offered the foreign ministry in compensation for his humiliation, but, as Tal Schneider, Israel’s foremost political blogger, told The Media Line, “I’m not sure it is his to give away. There are any number of Likud members who feel that they’ve waited long enough in line, and honestly, everything could change before the new week starts.”
“I’m not sure why everyone is reporting this as a fait accompli,” she added.
Speaking with The Media Line, Amir Tibon, one of Israel’s most prominent political analysts and a correspondent for the Walla news website, summed up the intense five-day rollercoaster in words that make Netanyahu sound like a kindred spirit of Donald Trump: “It’s a huge win for the most extreme edges of the right-wing camp in Israel, a loss for the left, and a catastrophic failure for the moderate elements in the Likud.”
In fact, he continued, “There is no longer a Likud. This is a big win for the most extremist voices, those that wouldn’t even have been considered part of the party structure a few years ago. The few moderates that are still left are in complete shock.” He went on to name those moderates as the legislator Benny Begin, son of the late prime minister Menachem Begin who was a founder of the Likud, as well as Avi Dichter, former head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service), and Ya’alon, the presumed-outgoing defense chief.
Most Israeli media reported that the state’s military brass, which consider Ya’alon a strong ally at the cabinet table, are also among the shocked.
Lieberman has long been a bête noir of the Israeli political scene, and a bitter adversary of Netanyahu. He demanded the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of acts of terrorism (the death penalty does not exist in Israel) and proposed the military toppling of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. He once mentioned that Israel should bomb the Aswan Dam in any future military confrontation with Egypt. Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979.
Netanyahu and Lieberman ran as partners in the elections of 2013 but separated in 2015. Lieberman’s faction has only six seats, but six is better than the advantage of one that Netanyahu currently enjoys.
Seasoned political observers in Jerusalem marveled at the prowess of Netanyahu’s maneuvers and bemoaned the cynicism of the new political schema. The Jerusalem Post’s Knesset (parliament) correspondent commented that “this is why Likud members scream ‘He’s a magician!’ at Likud Central Committee meetings.”
Citing Lieberman’s description of Netanyahu only last week as “a liar, a cheat and a crook,” Tibon said, “no one cares. It’s all political consolidation and maneuvering, that’s it.”
For Netanyahu, however, the chaos in which his rivals across the political spectrum find themselves may mean a few months of quiet and give him a stronger hold on his fragile coalition.
Late Thursday, Israeli media reported that Lieberman and Netanyahu’s negotiators had exchanged final drafts of a new coalition agreement that included a death penalty bill, a penalty which has not previously existed in Israel.
Netanyahu was reported to have updated Ya’alon of his dismissal and of the offer of the foreign ministry, though none of these moves have been confirmed.
The Palestinian Authority issued a press statement on Thursday, saying Lieberman’s presence in the Israeli government demonstrates that Israel favors extremism and the reinforcement of occupation and settlements over peace. “The appointment of Lieberman to serve as a minister in Netanyahu’s government is Israel’s answer to the regional, international and French efforts to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” the statement read.
Late on Thursday, the French government announced that its summit to relaunch peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine would go ahead on June 3rd. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls is expected in Jerusalem next week, though amid the intense political posturing, it remains unclear which ministers will actually be there to greet him.