Joking with the prosecutors

Op-ed: For time being, Lieberman isn’t going anywhere and Netanyahu government is stable

Reuters | Published: 04.16.11, 14:12

Avigdor Lieberman opened his speech Wednesday at the Yisrael Beiteinu convention with a few jokes about Justin Bieber and about heaven that made the audience laugh. This is how the chairman of Israel’s third largest party thought he should address one of the most important moments in his public life. In jest.

Because that’s how things work in Israel – when a senior government minister, deputy minister and foreign minister, for example, hears of the intention to file an indictment against him for breach of trust, money laundering, fraud and witness tampering, he feels the need to joke with the prosecutors and have fun with his supporters.

One cannot but be impressed by Lieberman’s coolness and acting abilities, or alternately, be concerned by the indifference and contempt shown to the law enforcement establishment.

Senior Yisrael Beiteinu figures would laugh in recent months when asked whether Lieberman intends to resign after the attorney general makes the decision in his case. This question is off the agenda for the time being, after Lieberman made it clear – briefly but unequivocally – that the coalition is stable and that after 15 years of persecution he’ll be proving his innocence and integrity.

The common perception in Lieberman’s party is that the entire affair is a Kafkaesque indictment, that is, no more than personal persecution of Lieberman, the man who succeeded and now must be stopped for political reasons. For many years now, the police and prosecutors have been trying to formulate an indictment against him and failed to do so – so why now of all times?

Lieberman’s spin

There were some puzzling moments in Lieberman’s monotonous speech, which he read without lifting his eyes from the paper for some 40 minutes. The most puzzling one was his decision to propose, seemingly incidentally, a new diplomatic initiative. Not another long-term intermediate plan, but rather, a final-status agreement that will be formulated by him, by Netanyahu, and by Livni – in order to curb the “diplomatic tsunami” ahead of September. There’s even no need to change the government’s makeup, Lieberman winked. We only need to agree on a diplomatic plan and market it to the world.

That’s not a bad spin on the eve of an indictment and could have positioned Lieberman in the Center of the political spectrum for a moment; however, the spin was swallowed up quickly in the piles of pessimistic words about the inability to speak with the Palestinians and reach understandings with them.

The foreign minister also pledged that the attempts to press the government from the outside or market diplomatic ideas to it will only make it stronger. Netanyahu was quick to reward him for the loyalty and stability, and about an hour after the convention ended issued a statement supporting Lieberman and wishing his senior coalition partner only good things.

Politically speaking, Netanyahu can indeed relax, for the time being at least. His government is not expected to collapse in the near future. As long as the foreign minister is given the opportunity for a hearing, Netanyahu’s coalition will be alive in the coming months.

As long as Netanyahu does not break too sharply to the Left on the diplomatic court, Yisrael Beiteinu has no substantive reasons to quit the government at this time – the diplomatic process is stuck, and dramatic progress is not on the agenda for now.

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