Chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu party, MK Avigdor Lieberman, announced he will not enter a coalition of a “halachic state”.

During an interview with Yediot Achronot, Lieberman added, “We in Yisrael Beitenu have five mandates against the 22 of the chareidim and chardalim (chareidi dati leumi), and we see our role to prevent the unilateral initiatives that are liable to turn the State of Israel into a halachic state.”

In his words, “We are not putting a new force into negotiations so as not to make it difficult to form a new right-wing coalition, but it is our duty to ensure that extremism and coercion are not allowed.”

Lieberman stressed that his only option was “a right-wing coalition, but not a halachic coalition, and we are not interested in pulling the negotiations to the last moment in order to announce that we will not join.”

Lieberman criticized Netanyahu, who said he had surrendered to the chareidim in the previous coalition and said: “In the last term, we saw endless examples of the chareidi monopoly, such as the story of the committee on the Kosel plan by MK Avichai Mandelblit and Natan Sharansky, which Netanyahu himself appointed. After its conclusion were submitted, and approved by the government, Netanyahu responded to the demands of the chareidim and froze the outline.”

The chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu reiterated his position that the Conversion Law of Moshe Nissim should be approved, in contrast to the chareidi position: “On the issue of conversion: Netanyahu appointed Moshe Nissim to head a committee, and despite the fact that its conclusions were submitted in July 2018, Netanyahu refrained from bringing them even to the plenum of the government, and what is more important than dealing with the not-so-distant history is to think about how to stop the radicalization of the chareidim and prevent damage to the [religious] status quo.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)