The way things looked on the morning of Dec. 2, Israel was headed toward early elections. Less than two years after its inception, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s third government is falling apart — at the prime minister’s own initiative. The elections should be held in the spring and the fragmented, conflicted Israeli political system will try to reinvent itself. Contacts are being pursued to unite the center-left bloc, to unite the right bloc (Netanyahu and HaBayit HaYehudi leader Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, for instance), while the keys remain in the hands of Yisrael Beitenu leader Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman. Will he join Netanyahu before or after the elections as he did in the past, or will he go for broke this time and take a quantum leap to become a major kingpin in the premiership contest?

Yvet (Liberman) is heading for the second option. On Nov. 28, he revealed his updated (peace) plan. On Dec. 3, he is scheduled to attend the Ministerial Council meeting of foreign ministers at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where he will present his plan to anyone interested. This coming weekend, he will visit Washington, participate in the Saban Forum and meet high-level officials in the US administration. Here, too, his new diplomatic plan based on the “regional arrangement” concept will head the list of topics for discussion.

Liberman has found for himself a new niche in the crowded Israeli political field: On the one hand, belligerence against Israel’s enemies, against terror and against some of those Israeli Arabs who identify with the Palestinians, and on the other hand, he presents a daring peace plan that includes steep concessions, the establishment of a Palestinian state, conceding neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the territorial exchange of densely populated Israeli-Arab regions. He hopes that this way, he will become the “responsible adult” and position himself to the left of Bennett and Netanyahu, but to the right of the other center parties. This is the kind of niche that generally produces Israeli prime ministers. But Liberman still bears the heavy burden of proof. Does the Israeli public view him as a legitimate candidate, despite his Russian origin and heavy Russian accent? Will his evaporating electorate (immigrants from the former Soviet Union) be replaced by native Israelis searching for a leader? We will have the answers to these questions in a few months.

Liberman’s peace plan leverages the advantage of a comprehensive regional agreement. Israel must negotiate with the entire Arab world, not only the Palestinians, and resolve the conflict “from the outside in.” Israel would be willing (in this context) for the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on most of the area of Judea-Samaria. Then, to satisfy the Palestinian territorial demand (“for territory the size of the West Bank before 1967”), Liberman offers territorial exchange including population exchange. Israel would concede regions such as Wadi Ara and the Triangle in the north of Israel, populated by hundreds of thousands of Israeli Arabs who would become citizens of the Palestinian state. In exchange for these high-quality lands, Israel would be able to annex most of the settlement blocs.