Netanyahu's coalition stable — with or without Liberman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feels confident about the stability of his coalition, whatever the outcome in Avigdor Liberman's trial or Labor Party primaries.
If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is feeling the pressure increase as the verdict nears for former foreign minister and present Knesset member Avigdor Liberman, he hides it well. The culmination of one of the biggest court cases in Israel's political and legal system will come Wednesday, Nov. 6, when the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court is scheduled to announce the verdict in the Belarus ambassador affair, over which Liberman faces charges of fraud and breach of public trust.
Even seasoned legal commentators find it difficult to predict the ultimate fate of Liberman, Netanyahu's partner in leading the Likud-Beiteinu faction. The options range from total exoneration to conviction without moral turpitude, to conviction with moral turpitude. The first two possibilities would allow him to return to the Foreign Ministry immediately, a post that has been set aside for him since elections at the beginning of 2013. During this time, the prime minister functioned as foreign minister. In the event of a conviction with moral turpitude, Liberman would be forced to quit the Knesset immediately. He could, however, run in the coming elections.
Simple political calculations show us that under such circumstances, the chair of Yisrael Beiteinu would immediately have a great vested interest in dissolving the coalition and holding new elections. This extreme scenario, which emerges in the articles of commentators as well as in talks within the political system, has generated great tension around the judges' decision. Many believe that the fate of the third Netanyahu government will also be decided that morning. The reality that is emerging is evidently much more drab and anticlimactic than that. Even Netanyahu, who is known for his tendency to see a tempest in a teapot, understands this time that even under the worst-case scenario (from Liberman's point of view), many long months will pass until it would affect the coalition.
Netanyahu's relatively confident, secure stance these days is the result, first and foremost, of the calming messages that the Yisrael Beiteinu chair takes pains to send him, even through the media. In an interview with journalist Sima Kadmon that was published Nov. 1 in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Liberman made every possible effort to clarify that he has no intentions of dismantling the partnership — on the contrary. According to Liberman, one of the first things he plans to do after Wednesday is to sit with representatives from the coalition's factions and examine methods for improving their work together. Liberman liberally used superlatives to describe his relationship with Netanyahu when he said that despite the prime minister not supporting Moshe Leon for mayor of the Jerusalem municipality, their relationship "has never been better or closer." People close to Netanyahu described Liberman's words as a positive sign of the coalition's stability.
