With less than 24 hours to go before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a legal deadline to form a coalition, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman once again shot down a compromise aimed at securing Netanyahu a fifth term.
Coalition talks broke down between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman earlier in the week.
Lieberman says that he would not accept anything short of the full passage of a controversial bill that would set mandatory quotas, but the haredi coalition partners have refused to accept that, leading to a clash that put Netanyahu's premiership at stake.
Netanyahu has until Wednesday at midnight to form a government, or else, President Reuven Rivlin would have to tap another MK as prime minister. Likud said it would try to dissolve the parliament and call an early election to prevent Rivlin from pursuing that route.
Taking to Facebook on Tuesday night, Lieberman said that Netanyahu's most recent compromise, in which defense ministers or future governments would set the quotas rather than the Knesset through primary legislation was like "putting lipstick on a taxidermy mount."
He repeated that he would "not move an inch" and would only accept the full passage of the bill setting mandatory quotas.
Backed by Netanyahu, the first of three motions required to dissolve parliament passed early Tuesday with a 66-44 majority, and a tentative election date was set for Sept. 17.
Negotiations are expected to continue right up till the final deadline. But if no compromise is found, Israel will likely go to elections for the second time this year — something that has never happened before.
Though Netanyahu's Likud party increased its power to 35 seats in parliament in the Apr. 9 vote, it cannot muster a 61-seat majority without Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party.
The Likud has assailed Lieberman in recent days for undermining the people's will of a right-wing government and accused him of acting out of personal spite for Netanyahu. The prime minister himself said Lieberman would be fully responsible for dragging the country to an "expensive, wasteful" election and his people have vowed to aggressively go after Lieberman's core supporters in response.
But the mercurial Lieberman seems to be holding his ground.
"The only motivation of Yisrael Beiteinu is to stand by our principles and our commitments," he said in a Facebook post. "We are not looking to topple Netanyahu and are not looking for an alternative candidate, but we will not compromise."
Ultra-Orthodox parties consider conscription a taboo, fearing that military service will lead to immersion in secularism. They insist that years of exemptions that have generated widespread resentment among the rest of Jewish Israelis remain in place.
A stalemate on the issue was one of the factors that shortened the term of the previous coalition government, but the assumption was that a creative compromise would be found this time around. Instead, Netanyahu finds himself on the precipice of having to call new elections that could once again put his lengthy rule in peril.
The crisis shines a spotlight on the 60-year-old Lieberman, one of the most influential and unpredictable politicians in Israel. The tough-talking, Moldovan-born Lieberman started out as a top aide to Netanyahu during his first term in office in the 1990s before embarking on a political career of his own. Since then, he has known his ups and downs with his former boss in stints in various ministries, including as foreign minister and defense minister.
