POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Avigdor Liberman’s balancing act between Russian-speaking immigrants and a nationwide platform faces new checks following the migration wave of 2022.
In 2022, as Russia’s warfare with Ukraine despatched tens of 1000’s of recent immigrants to Israel, Avigdor Liberman, chief of Yisrael Beytenu, issued an announcement that drew blended reactions from each Russian and Ukrainian curiosity teams. “I’m not for Russia, I’m not for Ukraine, I’m for Israel,” he mentioned.
The comment got here at a time of political change each inside and outside his occasion. It turned the highlight on his long-standing balancing act between ethnic politics and nationwide issues.
Since its founding in 1999, Yisrael Beytenu has been greater than a political occasion. It has served as the primary consultant for Israel’s Russian-speaking group, backed by immigrant Israeli voters from the previous Soviet Union (FSU) nations.
Whereas different “Russian” events have disappeared, Yisrael Beytenu has “survived and thrived,” in keeping with Larissa Remennick, professor of sociology and anthropology at Bar-Ilan College. For years, the occasion secured a notable share of Russian-speaking votes, typically eclipsing Likud amongst this group.
Political scientist Ze’ev Khanin calls Yisrael Beytenu’s system a “national-sectoral” id – a “Russian occasion with an Israeli accent.” Liberman has woven the group-specific issues of immigrants from the FSU right into a broader nationwide discourse, interesting each to his base and to the broader citizens.
Yisrael Beytenu chair MK Avigdor Liberman speaks on the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Israel, June 9, 2025 (credit score: CHEN SHIMMEL/THE JERUSALEM POST)
However Sergei Poliak, a political analyst, argues that this stability nonetheless basically relies on the migration cycle. “Liberman exists and develops as a celebration solely due to repatriates from Russian-speaking FSU nations,” he mentioned. In his view, the occasion’s development immediately tracks with immigration flows: “if you happen to construct a correlation… then you will note that the expansion of mandates for Liberman will definitely correlate with the inflow of repatriates from Russia.”
The energy and weak point of Yisrael Beytenu
ACCORDING TO some critics, the “Russian accent” of Yisrael Beytenu is each its asset and its weak point. Many within the FSU group see “considered one of their very own” in Liberman’s management, whereas veteran Israelis typically categorical suspicion towards the occasion’s Russian imprint. Again in 2019, journalist Lily Galili outlined Liberman’s subsequent problem: “strengthening the nationwide dimension of [his] occasion with out dropping his Russian base.”
Quick ahead to the post-2022 migration wave, the arrival of almost 100,000 Russian-speaking immigrants is placing that stability to the check. Many newcomers arrive with pressing wants – housing, jobs, and navigating life in Israel – but Liberman has shunned making high-profile endorsements explicitly in assist of those new olim.
For Khanin, the basics stay unchanged: “Liberman nonetheless represents an inner coverage place that resonates with repatriates from the ’90s, the 2000s, and the 2020s.” In a latest paper for the Start-Sadat Heart, he argued that Soviet and post-Soviet heritage issues “lower than Israeli expertise, opposite to stereotypes.”
Throughout all aliyah waves, he claims, Russian-speaking immigrants have largely “built-in into Israeli society and adopted its dominant values and political opinions,” which means their pursuits should not considerably completely different from these of the final citizens. Nevertheless, they current their very own imaginative and prescient of the best way to resolve not solely community-centred points, but in addition nationwide ones.
The larger shift, Khanin notes, is within the nationwide agenda itself. “If, say, 14-15 years in the past [the agenda] was largely a left-right divide, now, as we see with the exhaustion of the Arab-Israeli battle in its typical type as a primary subject, the main target is on civil and financial points.” That shift aligns neatly with Liberman’s priorities: “The massive situation contained in the broader proper–centrist camp is the thought of Israel as a Jewish democratic state – whereas ‘Jewish’ means nationwide moderately than spiritual.”
POLIAK COMPLICATES that image. Whereas he agrees that older immigrants stay a steady voting bloc, he stresses generational turnover: “for some folks it really works perpetually… they may vote for Yisrael Beytenu till the top of their days. And the youthful folks will decide up Hebrew quicker… in two to a few years, comparatively shortly, they determine what’s what, and so they begin voting fairly consciously.”
The place Khanin sees continuity throughout many years of aliyah, Poliak suggests potential adjustments in Liberman’s citizens as youthful voters assimilate extra shortly and shift their loyalties.
Liberman’s nationwide issues don’t point out a departure from his FSU-backed citizens; for example, Poliak stresses that “the inflow of migrants doesn’t create an imbalance between [Israel’s] curiosity and the curiosity of Liberman.” Nevertheless, as his platform turns into extra targeting wider nationwide issues, the query is twofold: whether or not the “ethnic” side of politics remains to be in demand, and whether or not events like Yisrael Beytenu will proceed to cater to it.
Khanin believes Israeli id is outlined by “postmodernism and multiculturalism” – being Israeli means belonging to the nation whereas additionally figuring out with a subgroup that distinguishes one group from one other. At its core, that is the stability that events like Yisrael Beytenu search to strike. Within the face of critics accusing Liberman of “splitting society” – whom Khanin dismisses as “clueless about Israeli political sociology, propagandists, or provocateurs” – Yisrael Beytenu performs a twin position: a nationwide actor with a sectoral edge.
But Poliak’s cautionary word means that this twin position could also be much less sturdy than it seems, contemplating altering generational voting patterns. As older repatriates stay loyal however youthful generations combine extra shortly, the occasion’s area of interest may slender over time. Yisrael Beytenu, then, stands at an unsure intersection: sustained by immigration flows, but examined by assimilation and shifting nationwide priorities.
