Lieberman and Prime Minister Netanyahu are longtime frenemies, used to shaking up the political scene
Evet Lvovich Liberman was born in Kishinev, Soviet Union (now Chișinău, Moldova) and despite having moved to Israel 38 years ago and changing his name to the Hebrew Avigdor, still routinely suffers the indignity of seeing his first name misspelt Yvette.
For now, his appointment as defense minister is stalled. The vote that was supposed to have confirmed his nomination tomorrow has been suspended on account of the refusal of Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a hardline nationalist coalition member from the pro-settlement party, Jewish Home, to ratify the nomination until his cabinet demands are met.
If the appointment goes through, Lieberman will secure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition for what may be the next few months. If Bennett follows through on his threats, Lieberman will be the man to bring the government down. Either way, he finds himself exactly where he loves to be: at the center of attention, alone under the spotlight.
Active in politics since his days as a student, Lieberman began working for the Likud, Netanyahu’s party, serving as the party director-general between 1993 and 1996, followed by a year as chief of staff during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister.
Like many of Netanyahu’s closest aides, he left the office disillusioned and on poor terms with his former boss, and founded his own party, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), which enjoyed an initial bout of popularity among the one million Russian-speaking Jews who immigrated to Israel following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the elections of 1999, the party won four seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. After numerous highs and lows (in 2009 Lieberman achieved a high of 15 Knesset seats) Lieberman now presides over a party that holds 6 Knesset seats. It is not much, but it is enough to sustain Netanyahu, who is attempting to keep together a coalition majority of a single seat.
Serving under prime ministers Netanyahu, Sharon and Olmert, Lieberman held the posts of national infrastructure minister from 1999 to 2002 and transport minister from 2003 to 2004.
In 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fired him for opposing the plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, which took place in 2005. In 2009, Netanyahu named Lieberman foreign minister, his most prestigious appointment to date; he held that job until 2012.
Israelis used to chuckle at the countries (principally Africa and the former Soviet states) with which their pugnacious foreign minister, whose extremist statements did not sit well with Western governments, sought diplomatic ties.
Lieberman has also been stalked by suspicions of corruption. In December 2012, one month before elections, Lieberman was charged with breach of trust. He was acquitted in November 2013, when Jerusalem Magistrates Court judges found that he had acted inappropriately but may not have been aware of “the seriousness of the circumstances.”
Days before his appointment last week, in a shakeup that removed Moshe Ya’alon, a former army chief of staff and a respected member of the Likud, from the post of defense minister, Lieberman pronounced Netanyahu “a liar and a crook.” The government, he said “should come to an end.”
In a public appearance last month, Lieberman said “this government is conducting a defeatist and lax policy. This is a leadership that is not constituted or capable mentally, psychologically or personally to deal with the challenges on the agenda. This is a government that doesn’t know how to make a decision and is afraid to fight terrorism. We need to defeat terrorism and not [merely] contain it.”
Israelis appear to be as turned off by the antics of their political leaders as are many European and American voters. “Oh, get away from me, I have nothing to say,” said Tamar Adler, a young mother of two toddlers when approached by The Media Line for comment.
Elad, 32, the owner of an iPhone repair shop, who did not provide his full name, shrugged and said “I don’t know, let’s give Lieberman a chance, let’s see what he does,” and volunteered that in the last elections he supported the Likud “at the last minute. I was about to vote for Bennett [Jewish Home, a right-wing nationalist party] but then the prime minister said that Arabs were voting in droves, so I switched.”
Lieberman, one of Israel’s most controversial politicians, believes that Arabs should be forcibly transferred across Israel’s borders by way of a two-state solution. The fact that stripping Israeli citizens of citizenship via expulsion is illegal does not deter him from his public musings.
Recently, Lieberman openly advocated assassinating the leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules Gaza, and voiced the view that Arab members of Knesset who meet with Hamas or Hezbollah leaders should face the death penalty. (Israel has no death penalty.) He has, on Israeli terms, zero military experience, nothing beyond the standard obligatory national three year service.
When approached by The Media Line for comment, Likud grandee Moshe Arens who was thrice minister of defense, and also minister of foreign affairs and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said frankly, “I don’t really know him.”
He added, “What I do know is that Ya’alon was an excellent defense minister and to exchange him for a person with no experience, qualifications or preparation, involves a risk.”
“The government had a very slim majority of one vote and this is what bothered the prime minister. I think this is why he decided to enlarge the coalition, but there are many people who feel that exchanging Ya’alon for Lieberman is not for the good.”