Even without joint photo-ops and major declarations, the past two weeks have clearly been one of the better periods in the long, stormy and complex relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.
While the Israel-Gaza war in the summer of 2014, codenamed Operation Protective Edge, resulted in an ugly rift between Netanyahu and Liberman, who was Israel’s foreign minister at the time, in the current cross-border clash the two are working closely and harmoniously. According to the latest Hadashot TV poll on May 9, the two are also reaping the fruit of their successful defense policy. If elections were held now, the poll has Netanyahu’s Likud getting 35 of the 120 Knesset seats (up from 30 in the 2015 elections) and Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party with six (up one), marking a renewed flourishing of their relationship.
