„Perhaps in most striking contrast to Ya‘alon, however, is the degree to which Liberman manifestly cannot be relied upon by Netanyahu. They have worked together on and off for some 30 years, and Liberman, set on becoming prime minister himself, has switched from Netanyahu loyalist to rival, from coalition partner to opposition critic, and back again, as and when he has spotted an opportunity for personal advantage.
Trump-style, he‘ll say whatever he thinks it useful to his career to say. On Gaza, for instance, Liberman declared at the height of the 2014 war, when he himself sat in the inner cabinet, that Hamas must be smashed and the government was not going far enough. But later he decided that Gaza must be given over to the UN. And later still that the way forward was via the Strip‘s economic development. When he deems the time ripe, he can be depended upon to ditch Netanyahu with the same ease that he ditched his Yisrael Beytenu party‘s much-hyped social agenda in negotiating this coalition deal. (…)
Why did Netanyahu trade the loyal, moral, militarily expert Ya‘alon for the disloyal, demagogic, and militarily inexpert Liberman? Ultimately because Netanyahu needed to expand his unstable coalition, and Liberman would not have joined if he wasn‘t given the defense post. The alternative potential coalition partner, Zionist Union‘s Isaac Herzog, was driving too hard a bargain, leads a disunited party and is reviled by the governing right.“
(David Horovitz, Chefredakteur der Times of Israel, zur Umbildung der israelischen Regierung: „Why Netanyahu‘s dumping of his defense minister is no ordinal political maneuver“)
