He’s back!

EVER since his fourth election victory in March 2015 Binyamin Netanyahu has been trying to broaden his coalition, which, with only 61 members, had the slimmest of majorities in Israel’s 120-member parliament. For most of the past year he has held on-and-off talks with the leader of the centre-left Zionist Union, Yitzhak Herzog. But last week, as the negotiations hit a snag, the prime minister astounded the country by concluding a deal with Avigdor Lieberman (pictured left), the leader of Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home), a right-wing nationalist party.

The renewed alliance with Mr Lieberman, a former foreign minister, who has repeatedly fallen out with Mr Netanyahu and who recently called him “a liar and a fraudster” and accused him of being incapable of making decisions, shows the lengths the prime minister is prepared to go to preserve his rule. In return for bringing his five Knesset members into the coalition, Mr Lieberman will be appointed defence minister, traditionally the most important job in Israel after the prime minister’s. He is also getting 1.4 billion shekels ($360m) to boost pensions for low-income retirees, mainly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the Moldovan-born Mr Lieberman’s core constituency.