Netanyahu facing sudden coalition crisis with Lieberman
Monday, July 19, 2010
By: ICEJ News

Conversion bill at center of disagreement

The coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rocked by an internal crisis in recent days as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Israel Beitenu Party seek revenge for being slighted one to many times of late.

The main issue of disagreement is a debate over a controversial change to the country's law regarding conversions to Judaism which has caused Israel Beitenu and the Haredi parties in the government to threaten to bolt if their proposed law isn't passed. Such a move would require opposition leader Tzipi Livni, leader of the Kadima Party, which is the second largest in the current Knesset, to be brought into the coalition, but she has declared that she is unwilling to sit in a government with Netanyahu as the Prime Minister.

“We are not on the way into the government,” a senior Kadima source confirmed. “We won’t be Bibi or Barak’s backup plan if things don’t work out with Lieberman.”

In Israel’s parliamentary system, a government can only be formed by the party gaining the most votes in an election making a coalition agreement with smaller parties in order to forge an agreement whereby at least 61 out of the 120 members of the Knesset will agree to vote for the leader of the largest party to become Prime Minister. Usually, the Prime Minister wannabe must promise key cabinet appointments and other inducements to smaller parties in order to gain their cooperation, and if any of those parties become dissatisfied with the government during the course of an election cycle, they can quit the government, forcing the ruling party to make a new deal with another party to replace them. If no such agreement can be reached, the government must resign and conduct new elections.

Lieberman was reportedly miffed that Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was sent to Brussels, Belgium three weeks ago without his knowledge to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an American sponsored effort to patch up relations between the two US allies after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident. Lieberman felt that his turf as Foreign Minister was being encroached upon and that the Prime Minister had publicly expressed a lack of confidence in him by sending Ben-Eliezer to the meeting instead of him.

The spat escalated over Netanyahu’s opposition to Israel Beiteinu MK David Rotem’s conversion bill, then escalated again when Israel Beiteinu ministers’ voted against the draft state budget in the cabinet late last week. Lieberman then appointed diplomat Meron Reuven as temporary ambassador to the United Nations without informing Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and Lieberman were scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss their differences and attempt to salvage the coalition, with Netanyahu saying he will compromise on everything except the conversion bill, which he has announced his principled opposition to. Lieberman held a press conference Monday morning in which he chastised the media analysts for printing “nonsense” about a coalition crisis and insisted that he has no intention of leaving the coalition.

Other parties in his coalition, including religious parties announced yestarday that they might bolt the coalition if the conversion bill does not pass. Israel’s Chief Sepharadi rabbi Shlomo Amar announced during a recent press conference that "If the conversion law doesn't pass, there will be a serious crisis in the Jewish people," adding that if the State of Israel allows conversions to the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, which are much more liberal then Orthodox streams, to count towards citizenship benefits in the Jewish state, “we are dividing the people into two.”