When Lieberman grabbed the defence ministry in what was termed a ‘Game of Thrones’ manoeuvre by the Israeli press, it marked a political watershed for what is increasingly becoming a racially identified Israeli garrison state. While the idea of a Jewish state has always been plagued by ambivalence and contradiction, its more chauvinistic and expansionist ambitions had been kept in check by the country’s liberal and leftist currents. The rise of Lieberman calls all this into question. As Defence Minister, he is well placed to deal harshly with a military that has at times shown reluctance to follow the more extremist dictates of the Israeli hard Right.
Moldovan-born Lieberman entered serious politics in the late 1980s and quickly came to prominence as a member of the Israeli political class. He has served in (mostly rightwing) coalition governments as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. His self-created political vehicle, the Yisrael Beiteinu (‘Israel is our home’) party, draws its political base almost entirely from the Russian-speaking immigrants that have formed a significant segment of Israeli society since the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s. Lieberman has been able to use the votes and shifting numbers of seats of Yisrael – a minority secular party of the nationalist Right – both as a kind of kingmaker in Israeli politics and as a means to achieve his own personal ambitions.
