Avigdor Lieberman can notch one achievement in his belt. Beyond the successful showing at the polls, he managed to spearhead two political maneuvers that shaped this election campaign at its core. First, he was responsible for the fact that we had to vote again in the first place. His decision to shun a right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu threw everything up in the air. Second, he was able to create a new agenda for the Center-Left, which provided the momentum for its campaign run. His appropriation of the centrist-secular, anti-haredi square on the political chessboard returned the civic agenda to the forefront, where the Center-Left has an advantage. Hence we saw Blue and White sound the alarm over haredi voter turnout, the need to stop religious coercion and what not.
This is also the reason the Likud and Netanyahu should have tried bringing the diplomatic-security agenda to the forefront, where the Right has an advantage. Applying sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, a defense pact with the United States – all were part of Netanyahu's effort not just to stand out among his rivals but to reshape the field and public discourse overall.
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One ironic fact is that the Right's Achilles heel in the civic agenda stems, of all things, from its haredi and national-religious partners. It is the Right's "ideologues" who have alienated a large portion of the electorate and stunted the nationalist camp's growth.
Much has been written about Lieberman's motives and the factors that led him to throw a grenade into the previous election. A personal vendetta against Netanyahu, concerns over criminal investigations and other theories have been posited, but I believe it's something else: His motivation was something simpler – political survival. The previous election ended with him brushing up against the electoral threshold, his electoral base of Russian immigrants was dwindling, and Lieberman understood that his political future wasn't on the right of Likud. The fact that the right-wing bloc wouldn't have a majority without him offered him the opportunity of a lifetime to reinvent himself. Thus centrist-secular Lieberman was born, someone who could appeal to Kahlon and Lapid's voters, as the non-leftist who wasn't Netanyahu. The fact that he toppled a right-wing government and could facilitate the formation of a center-left government is moot.
In contrast to his image, Lieberman isn't an ideologue. Less than a year ago he helped the haredim win the municipal election in Jerusalem. This isn't hypocrisy, it is typical Liebermanist politics. Where will he go in the future? We've already seen him vote with the Left against the so-called camera law, and there's no way of knowing which niche the next political constellations will force him to slide into down the road. Who knows, maybe one day we'll see him heading the Joint Arab List. After all, he has already promised to give them Wadi Ara.
