Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman on Sunday stated that his party would not be willing to sit with Arab or haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties in the next government.
“For me, there is no place for non-Zionist elements in the next government, not for the Arab parties and not for the haredi parties, which are anti-Zionist factors,” Liberman said during a Sunday interview on KAN Reshet Bet, which came after talks with other opposition party heads on Saturday evening.
He made the statements while speaking on establishing a new government ahead of the next elections, currently scheduled for October 2026.
When asked what would occur if haredi or Arab parties were needed to allow for the formation of a government to be possible, Liberman responded that “if we manage ourselves correctly, we will reach enough mandates to establish a broad and stable Zionist coalition.”
“If we conduct ourselves properly, we will achieve the desired result,” he added.
Liberman said that the decision not to sit with Arab or haredi parties “is in order to reflect the basic values of the Zionist movement.”
“Whoever truly opposes military service in the IDF [...] anyone who believes it’s legitimate not to serve is an evader. We cannot lend a hand to evasion,” he continued.
In July, the haredi United Torah Judaism party left the coalition and government due to the fallout in negotiations over the controversial haredi conscription law. Shortly afterward, Shas left the government as well, though the party still remains in the coalition.
Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al, the two Arab parties in the Knesset, have discussed re-establishing the Joint List bloc ahead of the elections. The bloc was once made up of the four central Arab parties, Ra’am, Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad, and began to break apart when Ra’am left the alliance.
In 2021, Ra’am joined the coalition during the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government, marking the first time an Arab party was a formal member of a governing coalition.
However, Opposition leader Lapid (Yesh Atid) had reportedly said this week that after the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023, there will not be another government with Arab parties.
Democrats party chair Yair Golan posted on Friday, “Those who continue to disqualify Arabs as political partners, especially at this critical moment, are aligning themselves with the extreme Right and fail to understand just how dangerous the current government is and how severe our reality has become.”
Israeli Arabs "not responsible" for October 7
“It is not the Arabs in Israel who are responsible for October 7. The ones responsible for the massacre are Hamas, and the one responsible for the failure is [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Golan stated.
“The Israeli public is ready, more than ready, for a different government,” he added.
Liberman, Lapid, and Golan all held a joint meeting on Saturday evening, along with former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar! party. The opposition party heads have been holding separate one-on-one talks on forming a set of guidelines for the next government to replace Netanyahu.
In the Saturday meeting, it was decided that the group would now become a permanent forum with members of what has been termed “the change bloc” and would hold continuous joint meetings.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Blue and White head MK Gantz were also invited to attend the meeting and be part of the “change bloc” but were reportedly unable to attend due to scheduling issues.
The next “change bloc” meeting has been scheduled to be held immediately after Yom Kippur, with the leaders stating that they expect Bennett and Gantz to attend.
Liberman, Lapid, Golan, and Eisenkot said that they had agreed to “establish a professional body to work on guidelines for the next government” during the meeting.
Among the guidelines discussed were “the creation of a constitution, universal national service, and safeguarding Israel’s identity as a Jewish, democratic, and Zionist state,” they said.
Liberman spoke about the meeting in the Sunday KAN interview, in which he said that although Bennett was “absent for technical reasons,” he believes “that at the next meeting, he will already be participating.”
However, Liberman expressed concerns that Gantz, who has previously entered two unity governments under Netanyahu, would still see Netanyahu as a coalition partner during the interview.