A hard-right Israeli government?

Throwing Israeli politics into turmoil, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Israel Is Our Home, the right-wing party that finished third in the recent elections, to join his new government. Under the tentative pact, party leader Avigdor Lieberman, a firm opponent of negotiations with the Palestinians, would become foreign minister. That would make the hawkish Lieberman the central figure in Israel’s dealings with the U.S.—not only on the Palestinians, but also on Iran’s nuclear program and other delicate issues.

The deal is not final, however. Netanyahu said he still hopes for a coalition agreement with the centrist Kadima Party. If such an agreement were reached, it could override any pact with Lieberman. But Kadima’s leader, Tzipi Livni, has previously indicated she would only join a government with a power-sharing deal that would enable her to serve as prime minister for a period of time.

Lieberman as foreign minister would be a “disaster,” said Jeffrey Goldberg in TheAtlantic.com. With his infamous proposal that Israeli Arabs swear an oath of loyalty to the state, “he’s made himself into a racist.” His appointment would therefore be “a gift to those who believe that Israel is nothing more than South Africa on the Med.”

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That’s why Livni needs to swallow her pride and join Netanyahu’s government, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Kadima and Likud are not that far apart in their worldviews. Netanyahu isn’t opposed to a two-state solution, but he “correctly points out” that full sovereignty for the West Bank and Gaza is “too dangerous a prospect to contemplate” right now, given Palestinian extremism. And with a Netanyahu-Livni alliance, “the Arabs couldn’t use the alibi of Israel’s ‘extreme-right government’ for their continued intransigence.”

A hard-right government might not be so bad, said Michael Binyon in the London Times. Once Lieberman got into office, he “would probably tone down his rhetoric.” Remember, the first time Netanyahu was prime minister, he quickly realized he could not stick to his platform of “outright refusal to deal with Yasser Arafat”—and the two went on to reach some accords. Besides, some Arab countries believe that only a peace deal negotiated with a right-wing Israeli government has any chance of enduring. Lieberman might not “be the disaster for Israel that his critics suggest.”