Avigdor Lieberman

Avigdor Lieberman is one of the longest-serving and most durable figures in Israeli politics, and his public standing has a stable floor: the Yisrael Beiteinu base, which grew among immigrants from the former Soviet Union and has expanded into the secular right. His record includes decades in senior posts — foreign minister, defense minister and finance minister — and an image as a security hawk; after October 7, attention returned to a document he submitted in December 2016 warning that Hamas was planning to seize Israeli communities and take hostages. What makes his standing volatile is his history of deciding the fate of governments: in 2018 he resigned as defense minister in protest at a ceasefire in Gaza, in 2019 he refused to join a Netanyahu government over the conscription law and the Knesset was dissolved, and in 2021 he helped form the Bennett–Lapid government and served in it as finance minister. The public sees this capacity for maneuver as both an asset and a source of uncertainty. His clashes with the Haredi parties over conscription and religion-and-state relations are his trademark: they rally his camp but limit his appeal beyond it. In the election for the 26th Knesset he is running at the head of an independent list and presenting himself as a candidate for prime minister, pledging not to sit with Netanyahu and sketching a Zionist government without the Haredi or Arab parties that would legislate conscription for all and set up a state commission of inquiry; talks on a merger with Gadi Eisenkot came to nothing, and in September 2026 he went so far as to propose handing Jordan security and civil responsibility for Areas A and B. A decisive role in forming the next coalition or in bringing it down — the lever he has pulled before — would be the clearest catalyst for strengthening his standing.