Liberman denies Channel 13 report of Haredi backchannel, sets High Court test

Update, 8 November, 22:08 Israel time

The reports Liberman rejected originated with Channel 13. The Times of Israel reported that the network said on Saturday that Liberman and the ultra-Orthodox parties had kept up secret contacts for months while campaigning against each other in public. According to that account, the contacts were handled by people close to Liberman, among them Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and political adviser Avi Abuhatzeira, and were hidden from most Yisrael Beytenu members. The Times of Israel noted that Channel 13 did not cite sources, and that Liberman accused news outlets of running an organised campaign to discredit him.

Ynet reported that Liberman on Sunday described a conscription law he himself advanced in 2018 as a suitable basis for agreements. Ynet said that law is considerably more lenient than the policy he has criticised the government for during the current term.

Earlier on Sunday, Liberman wrote on X that being ready to compromise does not mean abandoning values. In that post he said that those attacking him over efforts to reach understandings with the Haredi parties were people who would prefer a government relying on Ra'am and the Joint List. Ynet also quoted him saying he had not given up on the principle of conscription and that becoming prime minister was an option for him, not an obsession. Ynet reported that Gadi Eisenkot planned to meet him to seek support for an emergency government.

News.co.il commented that despite his denials, Liberman has not explained how a government could be formed within the red lines he has set.

The story as first reported

Avigdor Liberman, leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party, said on Sunday evening that the precondition for any law on military conscription is that it can withstand review by Israel's High Court of Justice. Ynet carried the remark as a breaking alert, and N12 reported it through its political correspondent Dafna Liel in the context of contacts with the Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, parties.

In the same statement Liberman rejected reports that he had reached an understanding with Haredi politicians. According to commentator Amit Segal, Liberman said a compromise on the draft law was possible only if it passed the court test, and described the reports of a deal between him and the Haredim as laying the ground for a short-lived minority government with what he called supporters of Hamas.

What Liberman wrote

The fullest version of his position came in a post on X by Liberman himself. In it he said that all reports about mediators acting on his behalf, including the names that had been mentioned, such as Moshe Leon, Avi Abuhatzeira and others, were lies and fabrications. He wrote that reports of supposed talks about freezing what he referred to as the arrests law were also false, and that no conversation of that kind had ever taken place, whether directly or indirectly.

Liberman argued that no journalist had supplied a single concrete detail about the alleged meetings: when they happened, where, how many people took part or in what composition. In his account, the reason was simply that the meetings did not occur. He also wrote that reports of him backing down on the draft law showed a basic lack of understanding on the part of the reporters who aired them, before restating that court approval is the precondition for any such legislation.

These are Liberman's own claims. The reports gathered here do not include any response from the journalists or outlets whose stories he was rejecting, nor from the people he named.

The Haredi draft question

Whether ultra-Orthodox men should be conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is one of the longest-running disputes in Israeli politics. Most Jewish Israelis are called up for compulsory service, while many Haredi men studying in yeshivas, religious seminaries, have for decades been exempted or had their service deferred. Haredi parties have sought legislation to anchor those arrangements in law; their opponents, Liberman prominent among them, argue that the burden of service should be shared.

Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu draws much of its support from secular voters, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and he has long made conscription of the ultra-Orthodox a central issue. That background explains why reports suggesting he had softened his position, or opened a back channel to Haredi parties, drew such a sharp denial.

Why the High Court matters

The High Court of Justice is Israel's Supreme Court sitting as a court of first instance on petitions against the state and its authorities. Israelis often refer to it by its Hebrew acronym, Bagatz. Over the years the court has heard repeated challenges to the legal basis for exempting yeshiva students, and arrangements that treated groups of citizens unequally have faced judicial scrutiny.

By setting court review as his test, Liberman is signalling that he would not support a compromise that he believes judges would later strike down. He did not, in the material reported, spell out what specific provisions he thinks a law would need in order to meet that standard.

The minority government remark

The phrase relayed by Segal, a minority government relying on what Liberman called Hamas supporters, appears to be aimed at the possibility of a government that depends on the backing of Arab parties. This is how Liberman characterised the reports about him; it is his political framing, and the material does not identify which parties or politicians he meant.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports identifies who originally published the claims of a deal or of mediators, or what evidence those stories cited. There is no reported reaction from Moshe Leon, Avi Abuhatzeira or the Haredi parties to Liberman's denial. The reports also do not explain what the arrests law Liberman mentioned would do, or what conditions he believes a draft law must meet to pass judicial review.