Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the Yisrael Beitenu party, will at 12:30 on Monday 9 Tammuz 5774 officially announce the end of his coalition with Likud. The two parties ran under a joint slate in the Knesset elections, earning 31 seats. After the split Likud will remain with 20 seats and Yisrael Beitenu will become fifth in size together with Shas, with 11 seats.
Lieberman has been at odds with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and he has not made an effort to hide his anger during recent Security Cabinet meetings. Lieberman feels the prime minister’s statement and policy of “quiet will be met with quiet” is absurd.
“After the kidnapping of the three youths and over a week of increasing rocket fire we must eradicate the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and not announced ‘quiet will be met with quiet’. The rockets continue and will each month until they reach Tel Aviv and Netanya. We must hunt them all, those who supported and encouraged the murders of the three youths including Ismail Haniyeh. It does not matter if they are in Qatar of Gaza. We must send a message to Qatar as well, an ultimatum. We are no interested in reaching any agreement with Hamas regarding all the efforts from Egypt and others to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas” the foreign minister told members of the press.
Likud: 20
Yesh Atid: 19
Labor: 15
Bayit Yehudi: 12
Yisrael Beitenu: 11
Shas: 11
Yahadut Hatorah: 7
The Movement: 6
Meretz: 6
Hadash: 4
Ra’am-Ta’al: 4
NDA: 3
Kadima: 2
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
There is a time and a place for everything. At a moment like this the Foreign Minister should be entirely focused on the burning national issues at hand, not on the petty political affairs of his faction. For shame.
Since it is unlikely that Lieberman will ever join a coalition led by anyone other than Likud, Netanyahu is in no way worse off. Both parties will probably do better separately. Unity only “pays” under proportional representation if one of the partners risked falling below the threshold.