Israeli Politics Shift Rightward As Beitenu Joins Government

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The New York Sun

JERUSALEM — Israeli politics shifted to the right yesterday when Prime Minister Olmert persuaded a fiercely anti-Arab party to join his government.

Avigdor Lieberman, who is the leader of the Israel Beitenu — or Israel Our Home — Party, was promised the position of vice prime minister in exchange for committing his party’s 11 Members of Parliament to the coalition led by Mr. Olmert. “We are joining the government,” Mr. Lieberman said after meeting the prime minister.

The agreement changed the complexion of Israel’s government, which had previously presented itself as centrist. The shift has been caused largely by this summer’s two military crises in Gaza and Lebanon. Now, polls suggest that Mr. Olmert would be heavily defeated in an election by more traditional, right-wing parties.

By persuading Mr. Lieberman to join, Mr. Olmert has bought himself time to try to maneuver his own Kadima party back from its currently low poll ratings.

Mr. Lieberman’s bloc of votes gives Mr. Olmert, on paper, 78 supporters out of 120 members of the parliament or Knesset.

Mr. Olmert is hoping this will be enough to provide his government with stable support.

Mr. Lieberman enjoys massive support among many Russophone recent immigrants to Israel. His secular but strongly Zionist message won unexpectedly strong backing in this March’s general election.

In a newspaper interview before the election he confessed to being an opponent of Israeli-Arab coexistence, proposing that large Arab Israeli towns be transferred out of Israel in exchange for large Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

He called for Israeli Arab MPs who met with Palestinian Arab politicians from Hamas to be executed.

These views could cause problems with other, more moderate elements of Mr. Olmert’s coalition, especially the Labour Party.


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