Avigdor Lieberman's betrayal of the national camp has been hanging over the country like a dark cloud ever since the April election. Wherever the story takes us, it is hard to understand the motivation behind the move. Despite having garnered just five Knesset seats, Yisrael Beytenu's leader had every one of his megalomaniacal demands met, outside of one single, stubborn demand that appears to have been issued to serve as an escape hatch. It seems he never meant anything he said to begin with.
If he forced another round of elections on the country, it was only to improve his standing ahead of the second part of negotiations. But why? Was it only to go down in history as the man who succeeded in making the haredi draft a reality? Those familiar with the details know the possibility of there being a fair share of the burden was never on the table. And what could someone with the Defense Ministry in their pocket ask for? The answer: The premiership.
Obviously, this sounds unrealistic, mainly because the polls are far from indicating Lieberman is one of the figures the public perceives as suitable for the job. On the other hand, Yisrael Beytenu's modest election achievement of five Knesset seats did not stop him from dragging the entire political system and country into an unprecedented state of government crisis. For that, one must not only be a megalomaniac but quite the fantasist.
But Lieberman has correctly read the political sign everyone is talking about but yet few fully understand. Earlier this week, I condemned Lieberman's hatred of haredim. I was shocked by the vile demonization of an entire sector of the population and the vulgar and stereotypical attacks on fellow camp members. In a certain respect, I regret that opinion piece; not because the hateful discourse is legitimate but because this criticism plays into Lieberman's hands. He, of course, seeks to fortify the haredi connection to the nationalist camp and the Likud party as much as possible. And for good reason. Lieberman understands that the more the haredi parties strengthen their ties to the Likud, and in practice their commitment to right-wing governments, the more they abandon their status as political kingmakers. Lieberman is now storming the position and planting his party's flag.
If the haredim are in Netanyahu's pocket, so to say, and if as a result, the blocs are more or less balanced with 56 Knesset seats for the haredi-right-wing camp and 56 seats for the center-left, Lieberman will be the deciding factor. But in order to take full advantage of this position, he needs a little more than five Knesset seats. That is why he is wooing another electorate and reinventing himself as the Right's secular and liberal Yair Lapid. From this perspective, a united Right has served to contribute to his being positioned as the "secular option" on the non-Likud Right.
Let us return to our earlier question: What more can a deciding kingmaker ask for, outside of the Defense Ministry? A rotating premiership. Lieberman usurped democracy when he forced a repeat election following the Right's clear victory, and he is now about to do it again, this time through the thuggish blackmail of the prime minister, and all this from a minor political party with disproportionate influence.
Israeli politics have never before been forced to contend with such belligerent and harmful ethics. Lieberman is fanning the flames of hatred against haredi "blackmail," but he is poised to outdo them all. It will be a very dangerous precedent for Israeli politics in the long-run. But in the short-term, ahead of the upcoming election, the nationalist camp's working assumption should be that such a scenario will come into play.
