{"id":40792,"date":"2019-09-09T13:24:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40792"},"modified":"2019-09-09T13:24:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:24:13","slug":"arab-coalition-air-forces-destroy-houthi-positions-in-al-jawf-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40792","title":{"rendered":"Arab coalition air forces destroy Houthi positions in Al-Jawf province"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJERUSALEM: Avigdor Lieberman entered Israeli politics as a loyal prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, the maverick politician could be the one to topple his former mentor.
Lieberman, a burly, tough-talking immigrant from the former Soviet Union, forced Israel\u2019s unprecedented second election of the year and is poised to be the kingmaker again.
Polls suggest Netanyahu won\u2019t be able to form a coalition government without Lieberman\u2019s support.
Lieberman has played hard to get.
\u201cI don\u2019t have to join at any cost,\u201d he told Channel 12 news over the weekend. \u201cThe prime minister\u2019s policy is simply submission to terrorism.\u201d
For years, Netanyahu and Lieberman have had a roller-coaster relationship. Lieberman, once Netanyahu\u2019s chief of staff, has held a series of senior Cabinet posts and was often a staunch partner. But he\u2019s has also been a rival, critic and thorn in Netanyahu\u2019s side.
In a high-stakes gamble, he passed up the post of defense minister in Netanyahu\u2019s government following April\u2019s election, leaving the prime minister without a parliamentary majority and forcing the Sept. 17 do-over vote.
Their dispute, over what Lieberman says is excessive influence of ultra-Orthodox religious parties, has become a central issue in the current campaign.
Lieberman says he will insist on a secular unity government between Netanyahu and his main challenger, Benny Gantz, in order to push out ultra-Orthodox parties. But Netanyahu says his former ally\u2019s real goal is to oust him from office, and Lieberman is suddenly discovering newfound support from those who hope he does just that.
\u201cHe is the only one who actually stood up to Netanyahu and didn\u2019t bend over,\u201d said Eli Avidar, a lawmaker from Lieberman\u2019s Yisrael Beitenu party. \u201cLieberman has known Netanyahu for 31 years. He knows the good and the bad and every angle you can imagine.\u201d
The crisis that led to this month\u2019s election ostensibly revolved around Lieberman\u2019s insistence that young ultra-Orthodox men be drafted into the military, like most other Jewish males. But beneath the surface is a decades-long strained relationship between the two men.
The Moldovan-born Lieberman started as a top Netanyahu aide in the 1990s before embarking on a political career of his own. But he resigned last year because Netanyahu kept blocking his plans to strike hard against Gaza militants.
\u201cWhen I look at the Gaza Strip it\u2019s unbelievable. The Hamas chiefs know they have immunity from Netanyahu,\u201d Lieberman said Saturday.
Lieberman is often accused of racism for branding Arab lawmakers as enemies of the state and advocating for population swaps that would place many Arab citizens outside Israel\u2019s borders. But he\u2019s also shown signs of pragmatism, such as suggesting he\u2019d be willing to dismantle his own West Bank settlement if Israel\u2019s final borders were redrawn.
Lieberman\u2019s secular agenda has made him a favorite of Israel\u2019s business sector, and his iconoclastic persona and straight talk \u2014 delivered in a slow, Russian-accented monotone \u2014 made him an unlikely savior for people tired of Netanyahu\u2019s corruption-tainted, decade-long grip on power. That\u2019s despite the fact that Lieberman survived a lengthy corruption scandal himself that exposed his links to shady characters and that allegedly earned his daughter mysterious millions.
\u201cOddly, the man who was a symbol for the secretive and conspiratorial politician, who runs his party undemocratically, is the hope of Israeli democracy and society,\u201d communications expert Baruch Leshem wrote in a column in the Ynet website.
An irate Netanyahu has made it his mission to destroy Lieberman politically, taking aim in ads and campaigning furiously among his core base of Russian-speaking supporters. He\u2019s branded him a \u201cleftist\u201d and a \u201cserial toppler\u201d of right-wing governments.
\u201cWhoever wants a leftist government should vote for Lieberman,\u201d he said during a recent visit to Ukraine, which critics say he used to target Lieberman\u2019s traditional backers.
But the all-out assault has yet to make a dent. Polls show support for Lieberman\u2019s party has doubled since it came precariously close to elimination in April\u2019s vote.
An emboldened Lieberman recently met with top members of Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party, reportedly discussing the chances of replacing the prime minister if he fails to muster a parliamentary majority. That fear seems to have propelled Netanyahu to demand a \u201cloyalty oath\u201d from party members, which Lieberman compared to practices of a North Korean leader.
Unlike Gantz, Lieberman hasn\u2019t officially ruled out forming a government with Netanyahu again, saying a broad coalition is needed to tackle urgent security challenges and lessen a deficit \u2014 which he blames on extortion by smaller religious parties. But he\u2019s done nothing to dispel suggestions that he too wants Netanyahu gone.
\u201cHe\u2019s a strategist, he knows how to play politics better than anyone,\u201d said Ashley Perry, a former adviser.
Former officials affiliated with the center-left have been showing up at his campaign events. Lieberman has been warmly welcomed in bastions of liberal Tel Aviv \u2014 until recently an unimaginable scene.
Avidar, the lawmaker from Lieberman\u2019s party, said a firm stance against Netanyahu on religious affairs has boosted the party\u2019s wider appeal among secular voters who tend to vote more liberal, but said it remains firmly on the right when it comes to security and negotiations with the Palestinians.
\u201cWe are getting a lot of sympathy because people see that we are the only party stopping a Halachic state,\u201d he said, referring to one governed by Jewish law.
Still, the prospect of Lieberman\u2019s newfound crossover appeal is unnerving to those who have tangled with him before.
\u201cLieberman may have decided that the Netanyahu era is over and that he will be the one to give the final twist of the knife. That would be a fitting end to a Shakespeare play, but what we\u2019ve got here is an Israeli tragedy,\u201d wrote Zahava Galon, a former leader of the dovish Meretz party.
\u201cLieberman was and remains one of the shadiest and contemptible individuals in Israeli politics, and his belated legitimization only goes to show just how low we have sunk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM: Avigdor Lieberman entered Israeli politics as a loyal prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, the maverick politician could be the one to topple his former mentor.Lieberman, a burly, tough-talking immigrant from the former Soviet Union, forced Israel\u2019s unprecedented second election of the year and is poised to be the kingmaker again.Polls suggest Netanyahu…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}