Nine weeks to restore the historic exemption and enshrine it in law. Or else he loses the majority he fought five election campaigns to win.
“The war is over,” said Avigdor Lieberman, when asked by an interviewer this week if he still wanted to be a member of the war cabinet. The former minister and leader of Yisrael Beiteinu was scathing. What’s happening now in Gaza is no longer a war, he insisted. “What’s taking place [in Gaza] are routine security operations. There’s no war, just shuffling. From the Six Day [War] we’ve gone to six months.”
Lieberman’s military assessment, as someone who spent two years as defence minister, is interesting, but his political assessment is more important right now. Since 2019, Lieberman has been Netanyahu’s fiercest critic, but since October 7 he has dramatically toned down his rhetoric, angling for a seat in the war cabinet and counselling other opposition leaders that now was not the time for political upheaval.
Just like Gideon Sa’ar, who resigned last week from the coalition when he realised that he wasn’t about to get a seat in the war cabinet, Lieberman is now getting ready for the election which has no date.
Since the Knesset session ends next week, chances are that a date won’t be set for months to come, but Sa’ar and Lieberman both understand that as right-wingers who are also hypercritical of Benjamin Netanyahu, when the election comes, they will be fighting in what may be a wide but also crowded field. They may as well steal a move on the potential challengers who have yet to form and launch their own parties.
Both Sa’ar and Lieberman are talking about the election taking place in January 2025. That’s still eight months away, but for an increasing number of Israeli politicians, the campaign is already on.
