Yisrael Beiteinu

Yisrael Beiteinu

Yisrael Beiteinu (Hebrew: ישראל ביתנו‎, lit. Israel is Our Home) is a right-wing political party in Israel. The party describes itself as "a national movement with the clear vision to follow in the brave path of Zev Jabotinsky", the founder of Revisionist Zionism. It takes a hard line towards Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians. Its main platform involves reducing the number of Arab citizens by redrawing the borders with a future Palestinian state, in conjunction with efforts to increase Jewish immigration. Yisrael Beiteinu took 11 seats in the Knesset in the 2006 elections. In October 2006 the party became part of the Kadima-led coalition government, but pulled out in January 2008. In the 2009 elections, the party picked up four more seats, making it the third largest party behind Kadima and Likud.

Yisrael Beiteinu was formed by Avigdor Lieberman to create a platform for Russian immigrants who support a hard line in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Lieberman, a former Likud member, is known for his hardline attitude towards Palestinian statehood and his plan to redraw the Green Line with the West Bank in such a way that areas with high Arab populations, such as the Triangle area and the Wadi Ara, both gained by Israel from Jordan as part of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, would be transferred to Arab sovereignty. Such an arrangement would mean that a third of the Arab citizens of Israel would lose Israeli citizenship.

Lieberman argues that the Arab residents see themselves not as Israelis but as Palestinians, and should therefore be encouraged to join the Palestinian Authority. He has been involved in widely-publicized offers of financial compensation in exchange for renouncing their citizenship and land. Lieberman has presented this proposal as part of a potential peace deal aimed at establishing two separate national entities, one for Israelis and the other for Palestinians. However, he is known to have an affinity for the Druze population (the only Arab population to be fully drafted into the IDF), and has attracted a number of Druze voters. In 2009, the party appointed a Druze, Hamad Amar, to the twelfth spot on its candidate list for the 2009 election. Across the board, the Arab citizens of Israel have not received his proposals positively.

Lieberman's actions were motivated by the concessions granted by his former boss, Benjamin Netanyahu (when he was director-general of the Likud) to the Palestinian Authority in the 1997 Wye River Memorandum, featuring the division of the West Bank city of Hebron. One of the partners in Netanyahu's coalition was Yisrael BaAliyah, a new immigrants' list led by Natan Sharansky that also had right-of-center leanings. Lieberman himself had resigned from the Likud as a result of the Wye Accords, and he registered great disappointment when Sharansky did not pull out of the coalition, as did two of Sharansky's colleagues in Yisrael BaAliyah, Michael Nudelman and Yuri Stern, both of whom broke away to form Aliyah.

For the 1999 elections, Lieberman and Aliyah formed Yisrael Beiteinu, and the list won four seats, two short of Yisrael BaAliyah, although later two more members of Israel BaAliya later defected to left-wing parties.

For the 2003 elections the party joined the National Union, an alliance of right-wing parties led by Binyamin Elon, although the two groups parted ways shortly after joining Ariel Sharon's coalition.

In the 2006 elections, Yisrael Beiteinu ran alone. It was joined by former Shin Bet Deputy Director, Israel Hasson (who won the third place on the list). The party was successful and won 11 seats. However, it did not join the center-left government and initially opted to operate in opposition instead, but joined the government coalition in October 2006.

The party was involved in a controversy in January 2007 after Labour leader Amir Peretz nominated Raleb Majadele for the position of Minister of Science and Technology, thereby making him Israel's first Muslim Arab minister. Lieberman condemned the nomination and called for Peretz's resignation, accusing him of harming Israel's security by ceding to "internal rivalries" within the Labour party, whilst Peretz accused Yisrael Beiteinu of being a racist party. Yisrael Beiteinu's member of Knesset (MK) Esterina Tartman referred to Peretz's decision as a "lethal blow to Zionism," adding that Majadale's presence in the cabinet would damage "Israel's character as a Jewish state" and that "We need to destroy this affliction from within ourselves. God willing, God will come to our help." Tartman's comments were immediately condemned as racist by other MKs.

On 22 December 2008, Lieberman approved the party's list for the 2009 Knesset elections. New names in the top ten include Orly Levi (daughter of former Likud MK David Levi) and Anastasia Michaeli, two former models and current television hosts. Yosef Shagal and Esterina Tartman didn't make the list.

Essentially, the two key principles held by the movement are the creation of an encouraging socio-economic environment for new immigrants to Israel, while at the same time taking a hard line on all negotiations with the Palestinians and Arab states. A part of the academic argument in the movement's platform is based on the numerous studies published by faculties in Israel that warn of a danger posed to the Jewish character of Israel by the rising percentage of Arabs in the population of the state. The only solution, as argued by many of the supporters of the party, is an increased effort to bring more Jews to Israel by immigration and/or to convince as many Arab citizens of Israel as possible to leave. Lieberman argued that by giving in to Yasser Arafat's demands the government would aggravate the threat by strengthening the Palestinians' resolve to demand the Right of Return of Palestinians to Israeli territory.

Yisrael Beiteinu supports a two-state solution to the conflict. According to the party motto, "Israel is Our Home, Palestine is Theirs." In 2005, the party proposed the so-called Lieberman Plan as an alternative to Sharon's Disengagement plan, which would see the large blocs of Israeli land largely populated by Arabs and bordering the West Bank transferred to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the larger settlements including the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed before the withdrawal.

The plan broke with a long tradition in the right-wing Israeli nationalist camp that saw transfer of minority populations between states as the only solution to deal with a perceived threat of disloyalty by Arab citizens of Israel to the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. It was the first proposal for the transfer of lands in Israel-proper to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for peace. Yisrael Beiteinu promotes the idea that all Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs (Muslim, Christian, or Druze) should swear loyalty to the country (officially a Jewish state) and to its symbols (all of which are Jewish). The party emphasizes and contends that the majority of the Arab citizens of Israel do not serve in the Israeli army (compulsory only for Jewish Israelis and, as per their request, Israelis of Druze faith).

Fighting crime is also a major part of the platform of Yisrael Beiteinu, which was particularly dominant in the party's campaign in 2006. The party advocates increasing punishments for all forms of crimes as well as improving the status of police officers. The party's head, Avigdor Lieberman, asked to join Ehud Olmert's 31st government as the Internal Security Minister, but was prevented from taking the post due to an ongoing police investigation of him.

Yisrael Beiteinu proposes to solve the economic crisis by carrying out massive infrastructure projects in order to ease unemployment, giving aid to small businesses, and building new factories in the Negev and Galilee, for instance. MK Lia Shemtov is especially known for advocating the rights of the working class, lower middle class, and the poor. Shemtov claims to have played a central role in canceling the Israeli welfare-to-work plan ("Wisconsin Plan"), along with the rest of the party.

A large number of mainstream media sources within and outside of Israel label Yisrael Beiteinu and its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, as right wing and even far right, as well as ultra nationalist. At the same time the party recognizes two-state solution and is considered secularist, often to the extreme, both contradictory to the tradition of right wing politics in Israel. In addition, the party and its leader are often called populist.

Yisrael Beitenu runs for local elections under the name of the city that they run in, e.g. Petah Tikva Beiteinu ("Petah Tikva Our Home"). While the party as a whole does not advocate the separation of religion and state, the local chapters generally push for measures that the religious public opposes, such as public transportation on Saturdays and the ability to sell pork (which is treif and haraam) in general stores.

Yisrael Beiteinu and its plan have many vehement critics from the left and the right in Israel.

The Lieberman Plan caused a stir among Arab citizens of Israel, which explicitly treats them as a 'fifth column' and as an enemy within. On the one hand, with very few exceptions, Arabs in Israel argue that they are native to the region and should not have to renounce the villages and cities in which they, their parents, and their grandparents were born. Others insist that as Israeli citizens, they deserve equal rights within the State, and should not be singled out according to their ethnic or religious background. Various polls show that Arabs in Israel in general do not wish to move to the West Bank or Gaza if a Palestinian state were created there.

The party has 15 MKs in the current Knesset.

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Cabinet of Israel

The Cabinet of Israel is a formal body composed of government officials chosen and led by a Prime Minister. Its composition must be approved by a vote in the Knesset. The Prime Minister is able to remove members of the Cabinet, but to satisfy Israeli law he must do this in writing and new appointees must again be approved by the Knesset. Most Ministers are heads of government departments.

Following a general election in March, 2006, the Prime Minister and leader of the Kadima party, Ehud Olmert, formed the 31st government. His coalition government initially included three other parties; the Labour party, the Sephardic Shas party, and Gil, the pensioner's party. His proposed list of Ministers was put before the Knesset and approved on 4 May 2006. The cabinet had 25 members and the parties were represented as follows: Kadima with 12 Ministers, Labour with 7, Shas with 4 and Gil with 2.

The nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu joined the coalition in November 2006, resulting in a slight reshuffle; along with other changes, this left the distribution of ministers as follows: Kadima with 11, Labour with 6, Shas with 4, Gil with 2 and Yisrael Beiteinu with 2, alongside one independent non-MK, Daniel Friedmann. There is also one Deputy Minster (of Defense). In September 2007 another Labour minister was added to the cabinet. Yisrael Beiteinu left the coalition on 16 January 2008 in protest at peace talks with the Palestinian National Authority. Another Kadima MK (Eli Aflalo) was added to the cabinet on 14 July 2008.

The body discussed in this article is referred to in Israeli official documents as the Government of Israel. This is in accordance to the normal translation of its Hebrew name, (Hebrew: ממשלה‎, memshala). In Israel, the term cabinet (Hebrew: קבינט‎) is generally used for the Politics and Security Cabinet (Hebrew: הקבינט המדיני-ביטחוני‎), an unofficial group of cabinet members that decides on defense and foreign policy issues.

1 No party affiliation as Friedmann is not a member of the Knesset.

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Israeli legislative election, 2003

Elections for the 16th Knesset were held in Israel on 28 January 2003. The result was a resounding victory for Ariel Sharon's Likud.

2 Kadima broke away from Likud.

3 Noy broke away from One Nation and joined Likud. One Nation then merged into Labour.

4 The Secular Faction, Tzalash, and HaOlim broke away from Shinui. HaOlim merged into the National Union.

5 Yisrael Beiteinu left the National Union.

9 National Home broke away from the Secular Faction.

Ariel Sharon formed the 30th government on 28 February 2003. His coalition initially included just Shinui and the National Union (Israel BaAliya had merged into Likud soon after the election), though the National Religious Party joined the government on 3 March.

Sharon's decision to implement the Gaza disengagement plan led to the National Union and the National Religious Party leaving the coalition during June and November 2004 respectively. Shinui left the government in December 2004 following disagreements over the budget.

Labour-Meimad joined the coalition in January 2005, with Agudat Israel added to the government in March 2005. Labour-Meimad later pulled out in November that year, the same month in which Sharon led a breakaway from Likud to form Kadima. Likud left the coalition in January 2006. Following Sharon's stroke, Ehud Olmert took over as Acting Prime Minister.

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Michael Nudelman

Michael Nudelman (Hebrew: מיכאל נודלמן‎, born 30 June 1938) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael BaAliyah, Aliyah, the National Union, Yisrael Beiteinu and Kadima between 1996 and 2009.

Born in Kiev in the Soviet Union (today Ukraine), Nudelman made aliyah to Israel in 1991.

He was elected to the 14th Knesset as a representative of Yisrael BaAliyah. He resigned from the party along with Yuri Stern and formed the Aliyah party, which later merged with Yisrael Beiteinu, and as a member of this party he was elected to the 15th Knesset and to the 16th Knesset (as part of the National Union list, which Yisrael Beiteinu joined in that election).

In the 14th Knesset he served as chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, and he served as Deputy Chairman of the 16th Knesset.

In 2005 Nudelman supported the disengagement plan. Towards the end of the 16th Knesset he resigned from the party and announced that he was joining Kadima, seeing out the rest of the Knesset term as an independent MK. He was returned to the Knesset on Kadima's list in the 2006 elections.

Prior to the 2009 elections he left Kadima and reformed Aliyah, renaming it Yisrael HaMithadeshet. However, the party failed to cross the electoral threshold, and he lost his seat.

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