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Coalition building / Netanyahu threatened and Lieberman blinked By Yossi Verter Tags: Avigdor Lieberman  The excitement over who should form the next government came to a head yesterday at the President's Residence. The score: 65 votes in favor of Likud MK Benjamin Netanyahu. He sweat it out for 10 days, but it was worth it. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni only secured the support of 28 people - all members of her own Kadima faction. Yisrael Beiteinu MK Avigdor Lieberman, the sphinx from Minsk, didn't intend for a moment to recommend Livni or enable her to form a government. For an entire week he tantalized her, broadening the rift between her and the center-left camp. After he stubbornly refused to divulge his choice to Netanyahu in a phone conversation, Netanyahu sent Lieberman a message via a mutual friend: If you don't support me, you will find yourself outside the government. Lieberman, after all, has only 15 Knesset seats. So in the end, the Yisrael Beiteinu chairman blinked. Advertisement On January 16, 2008, Lieberman resigned from the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. At that time he declared: "I have said this dozens of times: Our job in the government is to stop the Annapolis process." So how could he have gone with Livni, who takes some of the credit for Annapolis and said just three days ago, "the Annapolis process must continue because the international community will not force upon us processes that we do not want"? Kadima counts among its members several battle-scarred political foxes, like Vice Premier Haim Ramon, MK Tzachi Hanegbi and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik. It was Ramon especially, who dragged Livni into this humiliating situation. He is an expert at toppling governments, not forming them. Ramon's fatal courtship of Lieberman has distanced Labor and Meretz (a combined total of 16 Knesset seats) from her, and also lost her the Arab factions (11 seats), which have not forgotten that she supported the Central Elections Committee ban on the Ra'am-Ta'al and Balad factions. Now Livni is threatening to go into the opposition, although members of her faction are less determined than she is. They don't see any problem joining a Netanyahu government, as long as they remain ministers. After a confused campaign that cost him two or three crucial Knesset seats, Netanyahu has managed to unite his entire camp around himself. With two or three advisors at his side - remnants of the team of 20 advisors who accompanied him during the campaign - and his special aide MK Gideon Sa'ar, Netanyahu has "navigated between the raindrops," as they say, without annoying anyone. Twenty-eight days from now, at the very most, he will present a government, either a right-wing one or a broader one, with Kadima. Maybe, at the last moment, he will agree to a rotation government, although today he does not want to hear of it. Last week someone made a daring proposal to Netanyahu: "Tell the president to give Livni the mandate to form a government because Kadima got the most votes. She will spend a fruitless month between Yvet [Lieberman], the wounded Jumes [MK Haim Oron, head of New Movement-Meretz] and the battered [Ehud] Barak, and you'll be sitting on the sidelines. After she fails you will be the only recourse. No one will have the strength left to make any more trouble." Coalition chaos Netanyahu rejected the suggestion. On Sunday evening he met with Likud MK Silvan Shalom at Jerusalem's King David Hotel. "The person who gets the mandate to form a government first will be prime minister," Shalom told him. "If she [Livni] gets the mandate, she will immediately call for unity with rotation and launch a crazy campaign to pressure you to join, with the media's help. Watch out. Go for the mandate." Ten days after the election, two people were claiming victory; one of the two even threw herself a victory party. A third party leader was playing hide-and-seek with an entire country. The fourth shut himself up on the 14th floor of the Defense Ministry compound until yesterday morning. This situation has provoked an abundance of conspiracy theories. On Monday evening a ceremony was held, marking the birth of a grandson for Aryeh Deri, who headed the Shas list in the past. Deri is expected to re-enter politics in the near future, after having served a three-year sentence for accepting bribery and finishing his mandatory cooling-off period (for moral turpitude). Ramon attended the celebration, as did Olmert, Peres and Finance Minister Roni Bar-On; Netanyahu was invited, but could not come. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai, current head of the Shas faction, was not invited; Communications Minister Ariel Atias of Shas was invited and came. Lieberman was out of the country. There was a lot of talk about the intention of Lieberman, Ramon and Deri to cobble together a government of Likud, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu - 70 MKs, no ultra-Orthodox and no Orthodox. Ramon unequivocally declared his support for such a government, and Lieberman would like it, too. His demands about civil union and changes in the electoral system have been made with the hope that the ultra-Orthodox will be left out. He also told someone this week that the country needs to be run by the "three biggies": himself, Tzipi and Bibi (Netanyahu). "Such a government," Lieberman said, "will last for four and half years. The others will just get in the way. What does Bibi need them for?" As for Deri, some pundits think he is interested in Shas remaining in the opposition for now. Yishai's leadership will thus suffer a mortal blow and in July, Deri's cooling-off period will end. As the senior Shas leader, he will then bring the party into the government. Deri dismissed this notion several times this week. The same theory holds that Ramon wants Lieberman to be an important player in the next government, so that the Yisrael Beiteinu head can force the next prime minister to extend Daniel Friedmann's tenure as justice minister, to allow Friedmann to exact Ramon's revenge on the justice system. The theory also states that Lieberman wants to take revenge on the person who branded him as Satan in the election campaign - Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Furthermore, there is a notion that Lieberman wants Netanyahu and Livni to take turns as prime minister (even though yesterday he told Peres he objects to rotation), with Netanyahu serving first and Livni second, because Lieberman wants the next election to take place when Bibi is Livni's No. 2. In that scenario, Lieberman and Netanyahu will wrestle over the leadership of the right from a similar opening position. The cherry on top of the theory: Lieberman thinks that if he succeeds in bringing about the formation of a government without any ultra-Orthodox parties, and in promoting his liberal positions on religion and state, the media will lay off him on the criminal investigations and will make it difficult for the prosecution to file an indictment against him - and ensure that the Bibi-Tzipi-Yvet government remains intact. Livni in the crossfire Outside Wednesday morning's cabinet meeting, a number of Labor Party ministers had a tough talk with Livni. "You walked all over us," they said. "You stole our voters and you've wiped us out, and for what? To join Lieberman?" Barak's long silence was broken only yesterday morning, at the meeting of his party's Knesset faction. This week, Barak's people were saying things that seem somewhat justified. "During the campaign you, the media kept asking Barak: Will you join a government with Lieberman or not? And he replied: 'Lieberman isn't my cup of tea, he is not a reasonable partner of mine.' He refused to reject this outright and you demanded a definite no or a definite yes. "And now," his associates complain, "the excitement surrounding the exit polls on election night hasn't even died down and Ramon already called Lieberman, on Livni's behalf. Then Livni met with him. And she is courting him, prepared to give him everything. How come you are quick to forgive Tzipi?" Adds a close associate of outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "Livni has built an entire career on Olmert's back. She built the whole campaign around 'a different prime minister,' on Olmert's ruins because of a few cash-filled envelopes and a few flights abroad. But she is quick to run into Lieberman's arms, even though the investigation against him is just as grave, perhaps even graver. And the sums Lieberman is suspected of having received are in the millions, compared to a few tens of thousands of dollars that have been attributed to Olmert. So what kind of different politics are we talking about?" Bookmark to del.icio.us   Ivrit in Iraq Iraqi professor asks Israel for shipment of Hebrew books. Racist reality show Reality show contestant calls his shoe 'Mohammed', angering Israel's Arabs.   1.   Kadima may not even lead the opposition 15:26  |  Ilan 20/02/09   2.   Livni is a rank amateur and needs to be replaced. 15:33  |  martin knopfman 20/02/09   3.   peace is dead 17:17  |  David 20/02/09   4.   Peace is dead.....long live the peacemakers. 19:52  |  Palestinian Brit 20/02/09   5.   anyone who cares about their political image will distance from 19:55  |  glenna 20/02/09   6.   Lieberman needs to stop playing games its time to stop 21:40  |  clist 20/02/09   7.   Good News 23:23  |  Baruch Gold 20/02/09   8.   BB is Back! 04:15  |  Bob Clark 21/02/09

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