How Avigdor Lieberman gambled against Benjamin Netanyahu — and won

As the other party leaders frantically try to cobble together coalitions, he does not even answer the phone until the last day of his holiday. Then he gets down to business.

But this Wednesday, he was still in Israel — and grumpy, the old Lieberman in full display. To reporters outside his house he repeated his commitment to form a national-unity government: “If Gantz and Netanyahu won’t announce that’s their intention, they shouldn’t bother even calling me.”

He then reeled off a long list of further demands — that the new government pass his law for conscripting yeshiva students and cancel the law against shops opening on Shabbat. He spoke too of the need for public transport on Shabbat, civil marriage, and teaching general studies in Strictly Orthodox schools.

But is that Mr Lieberman’s real intention — to revolutionise the relationship between state and synagogue? Does he want that as his legacy? Or is it just a convenient political wedge issue to further his own ambitions?

His personal life and political trajectory offer contradictory answers. The small settlement of Nokdim where he lives, on the edge of the Judean Desert, is a mixed secular-religious community. His wife Ela has over the years become religious herself. Of their family way of life, Mr Lieberman recently said “at home I eat only kosher. Outside I eat only what’s tasty.”

For many years his closest political ally was Shas leader Aryeh Deri and some of his most senior aides over the years have been Strictly Orthodox. Just last year, Mr Deri and Mr Lieberman collaborated successfully in Jerusalem in the mayoral campaign of Moshe Leon, another close friend of theirs.

Mr Leon was pushed as a candidate, despite the wishes of many in both the Charedi and secular communities in Jerusalem. It is this that makes many believe that Mr Lieberman’s ultra-secular phase is passing and opportunistic.

Mr Deri, however, insists that the break between them is permanent: “I don’t talk to him anymore and I won’t answer the phone when he calls.”

Ultimately it comes back to another joint friend of the two men: Benjamin Netanyahu. As a senior member of Yisrael Beitenu says, “Lieberman served under Netanyahu as foreign minister and defence minister and in both roles he realised that his own policy didn’t matter, since Netanyahu makes the big decisions and Lieberman felt he had no input. That’s why he wants to be able to influence decision-making and the title he holds is less important.”

In other words, Lieberman’s main objective is removing Mr Netanyahu. As long as he is prime minister, everything is meaningless to him because there is only one source of power. He believes he will be much more influential with a political novice like Benny Gantz. And without the Strictly Orthodox parties in coalition, a whole legislative agenda will open up to him.