Issues of diplomacy and national security such as the Iranian nuclear threat are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred battlefield during election campaigns. But in the current campaign another agenda is ruling the day for now: issues of religion and state, which isn't in Netanyahu’s comfort zone. The man who dragged him there is Avigdor Liberman, chairman of Yisrael Beitenu, who refused to join the coalition Netanyahu was forming if the enlistment law was not passed in its original form, and thus led to the dispersal of the 21st Knesset and to new elections in September.

On July 15, the alleged details of the coalition agreements between Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties were reported. These agreements had been reached after the April 9 elections and before the 21st Knesset was dispersed. According to the report, Netanyahu agreed that allowing a permit for public works on the Sabbath would be coordinated with the Chief Rabbinate and that a softer version of the enlistment law, favored by the ultra-Orthodox parties, would be implemented.

Netanyahu denied the report with unusual haste, as it is important for him to negate Liberman’s claim that accuses him of bowing to the ultra-Orthodox in order to hold on to power. Netanyahu did the same when Minister Bezalel Smotrich (United Right party) said in an interview that the ideological goal of his party is a state run by Jewish law (Halakhah). “The State of Israel would not be a Halakhah state,” Netanyahu then responded June 3.

Liberman is targeting the secular right-wing voter, who agrees with Netanyahu’s foreign policy positions but does not like his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, and thus attacking Netanyahu precisely at this spot. This approach has yielded Liberman political success, at least in the polls: from five mandates that he got in April’s election to 10 mandates in a Channel 12 poll July 16.