The start of a new civil year is a good time to ask why almost no one uses the term “the Twenties” to describe the wild decade we have just crossed the midpoint of. Perhaps the phrase still conjures images, for older generations, of trench coats, silent films and the Weimar Republic.
In any case, this week marked the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. Local historians will likely define its politics as the era of the death throes of the Israeli left.
On New Year’s Eve 25 years ago, Ehud Barak was prime minister, Yossi Beilin a senior minister, Meretz a central coalition partner, and the main agenda—after a full withdrawal from Lebanon—was negotiations toward full withdrawal from the Golan and near-total withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza. A quarter century later, no prime minister who defines himself as left-wing has been elected; the “Labor” and “Meretz” brands have vanished; and the IDF holds extensive territory in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.
Only six Knesset members from that era remain. But with all due respect to Moshe Gafni, Ahmed Tibi, Meir Porush, Yuli Edelstein and even Israel Katz, this quarter-century increasingly looks like the story of a love–hate triangle among three figures who have shaped the right and the state itself—and who are still with us: Avigdor Lieberman, Aryeh Deri and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Had the three known how to live in peace, Israeli politics would have been a dull affair with a predictable ending for more than a decade. The left would have been marginal, and the center a fifth wheel in right-wing governments.
But the complex relationship among the three inadvertently produced an entirely new political system. In the early 2000s, Shas sat in a left-wing government, Deri was in prison, Netanyahu was in business, and Lieberman was synonymous with the far-right fringe. Today, Shas is firmly right-wing, Deri is the number-one partner, Netanyahu is allied with the ultra-Orthodox, and Lieberman is as far from the coalition as possible.
The most consequential political move of the past quarter-century was Lieberman’s dramatic decision in May 2019 to block the formation of a government and drag the entire country into a cycle of elections that, in some sense, has never truly ended.
Was it driven by growing distance from the ultra-Orthodox and the religious drift of Likud? Or by the quotes attributed to Lieberman at the time, published by Dana Weiss: “Netanyahu crossed every red line. In 2019, seven complaints were filed against me and my children with the police, prosecutors and tax authorities. I am convinced Netanyahu was behind all of it. In my moral code, that is a sin for which there is no forgiveness, not even on Yom Kippur. Stop sending emissaries on Likud’s behalf—the idea that I’ll sit with Netanyahu is a hopeless illusion.”
An intriguing question—assuming one can unscramble yolk and white after they’ve been turned into an omelet. Every politician mixes personal and ideological motives. In any case, what does it matter now, after a quarter million voters followed Lieberman into partnership with Yair Lapid and Yair Golan on a civic platform rather than with Goldknopf and Smotrich on a nationalist one?
The more important, forward-looking question is this: Assuming most polls prove accurate, and assuming this will indeed be Netanyahu’s final term, could Lieberman nevertheless return to the bloc and almost automatically take a leading position in the race to head the right the day after? Lieberman himself insists there is no chance whatsoever. But his associates are fiercely divided. Some are convinced—genuinely—that he will return, because a promising future on the right is preferable to donating mandates to yet another fragile government dependent on the left and perhaps the Arabs. And there are those who think that the man who once stunned everyone might yet do so again—in the opposite direction.
