Learning not to loath Lieberman

Last week's Israeli election produced an even more indecisive result than usual. Just about the only clear winner to emerge was the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which overtook once mighty Labour to become the third largest in the Knesset after Kadima and Likud. The platform of Yisrael Beiteinu is unabashedly anti-Arab, with plans to force Arab-Israelis who refuse to swear allegiance to Israel and fight in its army to leave, and to redraw Israel's borders to exclude major concentrations of the Arab-Israeli population. Such an ultranationalist outfit should have no place in a healthy and vibrant liberal democracy. Yet Yisrael Beiteinu is at the centre of post-election deal-making in Israel: the party to whom it assigns its support will almost certainly go on to form the next Israeli government.

Yesterday Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beiteinu's founder and leader, announced his preference for Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the rightwing Likud party, to be the next Prime Minister. But his endorsement came with a twist:

“We recommend Benjamin Netanyahu only in the framework of a broad government. We want a government with the three biggest parties, Likud, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu.”

It is easy to see why such an arrangement would appeal to Yisrael Beiteinu, allowing it to continue to play the insurgent against the two largest governing groups whilst sharing in the spoils of power. Bringing Kadima on board also obviates an alliance with the gaggle of religious parties on whom a rightist government would otherwise rely, and with whose beliefs the staunch secularism of Yisrael Beiteinu would jarringly clash.

But, out of the mess and rightwards drift that last week's election produced, such an arrangement also represents the just about the best hope of progress towards an eventual Arab-Israeli settlement. The constituent members of such a coalition are not at all promising. The outgoing Kadima government was responsible for unleashing a fresh torrent of illwill in the Arab world through its recent war in Gaza. Mr Netanyahu's last period in office in the late 1990s crushed the momentum of the Oslo Accords. Yisrael Beiteinu takes almost as hard a line towards Palestinians in the Territories as he does to those within Israel proper.

Yet if a peace deal is ever to be made, it is better to have the three largest Israeli parties behind it from the beginning, rather than encouraged to attack it from the opposition. A tripartite coalition would make a much more coherent partner for both the Americans and the Palestinian leadership than the confused assemblages of disparate groupings that usually make up the Israeli government. A government independent of the smallest Israeli parties might also be in a position to make concrete steps towards constitutional reform, curtailing the almost 'perfect' proportionality which continually produces a succession of weak regimes incapable of effectively ruling.

At the moment, Likud have signalled a desire to work with Kadima, but Kadima is still insisting that unless it leads the coalition instead of Likud it will move into opposition. But for the sake of an eventual settlement it should reverse this stance, but make its cooperation contingent from the beginning on genuine steps towards a lasting peace. If Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu sign up to this, the Obama-regime in America will be given an opening to hold them to their word, and there might just be the beginnings of momentum towards a settlement with the Palestinians. However repugnant their platform, the current proposal of Yisrael Beiteinu should be seized. Amid a great deal of dispair among those hoping for peace sooner rather than later, it represents the best coalition option currently avaliable.