On Saturday, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman revealed a little more of his great plan to defraud the nationalist camp when he announced that he intended to force a unity government. It seemed he'd been hinting at that the entire time.
Lieberman promised the Russian sectors that the ultra-Orthodox would be enlisting in the IDF en masse. Film clips about it have recently been disseminated among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Lieberman is the only one who will draft the haredim, the promise – not Yair Lapid or whoever succeeds Avi Gabbay at Labor. So what if the clause in the law over which we're re-holding an election has nothing to do with haredi conscription, but with funding for yeshivas who send only a small percentage of their students to the army? Who bothers to delve into the details of the dispute about draft quotas? Lieberman promised to draft them – and he surely will, just like he will bring down Hamas when he is appointed defense minister.
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The Yisrael Beytenu leader promised the Right that if he gains strength in the next Knesset, a "liberal right-wing government" will be established after the election. That's actually what the election is about, he explains. Without him, Yakov Litzman, Moshe Gafni, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir would found a "government based on Jewish law," but with him, we are guaranteed a liberal, right-wing government. Really?
In May 2016, Lieberman agreed to sit in a government with the haredi parties United Torah Judaism and Shas and the religious Zionist Habayit Hayehudi. Before agreeing to join that government, did he present any demands about separation of religion and state? No, his main demand was that he be assigned the defense portfolio. You might ask, and rightly so, whether it is even possible – with his scant five seats – for him to turn a "messianic-haredi government" into a "liberal right-wing" one. The fact is that with only five seats, Lieberman managed to buck convention and secure the defense portfolio for his small faction.
Picture the following scenario: the day after the election, Yisrael Beytenu appears to have won 10, possibly 12, seats. A party under the leadership of Naftali Bennett, if any such runs, fails to pass the minimum electoral threshold. The Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, and the United Right secure a combined 59 seats. And again, without Lieberman, there is no government.
So how, exactly, would a liberal right-wing government arise, critical right-wing voters are asking themselves. Again, Lieberman will find himself facing off as a minority against a phalanx of "messianic haredi" parties. With whom does he plan to put together the dream government he promised right-wing voters? With just the Likud?
Now the picture is becoming clear, and the fraud is being exposed. Lieberman, who in the past opposed a unity government and even dubbed it a "government of national paralysis," has always been aiming for one without admitting it. The hint was clear to the political pundits who aligned themselves with him: in a scenario in which Yisrael Beytenu can tip the scales, there is no alternative but a unity government that would dramatically reduce, if not cancel, the power of the national camp.
Now that the extent of Lieberman's fraud is being made evident, we can say with certainty that he has always been working against the right-wing government. When the lies are exposed one after another, it makes sense to assume that Lieberman will not hesitate to join a left-wing government after the election, and possibly even support one of the left-wing candidates for prime minister. In the end, it seems, Lieberman keeps his word.
