JERUSALEM -- Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, announced Monday that he would not join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's next government, saying that the coalition being formed was "opportunist" and not "nationalist."
The decision by Lieberman, an ultra-nationalist whose calls for beheading terrorists and transferring Arab citizens to Palestinian territory have prompted anger, is unlikely to block Netanyahu from building a coalition before the deadline Wednesday. But it would leave the prime minister with a razor-thin majority in parliament -- 61 of 120 seats -- unless he reaches beyond the conservative and religious parties to form a unity government with the center-left Zionist Union.
Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party won six seats in the March 17 election, said, "Our dilemma was principles and not chairs," referring to ministerial positions, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz. "I am happy that we chose principles."
He complained that the new government would not significantly expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, pass the so-called nationality bill emphasizing Israel's Jewish character or commit to uprooting the Islamist movement Hamas from the Gaza Strip. He also accused Netanyahu of preparing to join forces with the Zionist Union, which won 24 seats in the election.
"We came to the clear and unequivocal conclusion that it is not right from our point of view to join the present coalition," Lieberman was quoted by Haaretz as saying. "We are talking about a coalition that does not reflect the national camp, and certainly not our feeling, to put it mildly. And therefore I have decided to resign from my role as foreign minister."
Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union, Netanyahu's chief challenger in the election, said afterward that he would not join the government but would lead a fierce opposition. He did not immediately respond to Lieberman's announcement.
Netanyahu's Likud party has already signed coalition agreements with the new Kulanu party whose head, Moshe Kahlon, is likely to become finance minister, and with United Torah Judaism, one of two ultra-Orthodox factions.
The rightist Jewish Home party, which opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Shas, which also represents the Orthodox, are still expected to join the Netanyahu government, although disagreements over ministerial portfolios and policy positions have been intense.
"Netanyahu's in trouble at this point, because he doesn't have a government, and we're two days away," said Mitchell Barak, a political consultant in Jerusalem. "I think Netanyahu prefers a unity government, and this may force him into doing that because this right-wing government would be way too narrow.
"He can't really be at 61 seats; it's almost impossible to govern that way -- any one part can bring it down, any two members of parliament can," Barak added. "The best-case scenario is to bring in the Zionist Union, which I think he wants to do because not only can he govern better, but it helps him face the international community when he has the center and the center-left when it comes to peace issues."
Lieberman, 56, became foreign minister in 2009 but took a hiatus for most of 2013 as he fought corruption charges that had dogged him for more than a decade. He was acquitted.
Born in the former Soviet Union, in what is now Moldova, Lieberman migrated to Israel in 1978. He began his political career with Likud and went on to found Yisrael Beiteinu in a bid to appeal to the large population of Israelis from the former Soviet Union. He has been both a partner and a foe of Netanyahu's: Their parties ran together in the 2013 election, but the relationship has recently frayed.
With Yisrael Beiteinu having dropped to six seats today from 15 seats in 2009, during a broad corruption scandal, Lieberman's political future is in doubt.
A Section on 05/05/2015