, when he was
Minister of Foreign Affairs Yisrael Beiteinu has its origins in the Israel of the late 1990s, when former Director-General of the
Prime Minister's Office,
Avigdor Lieberman was greatly disappointed by his former boss
Benjamin Netanyahu and his negotiation with the
Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu signed the
Wye River Memorandum, which featured the division of the city of
Hebron. This move was viewed by many right-wing Israelis, including many of Lieberman's own
Russian-speaking community, as a betrayal of their values by Netanyahu. At the time of the Wye River Memorandum, the Russian-speaking community in Israel was mainly represented by the center-right
Yisrael BaAliyah, led by
Natan Sharansky, who decided not to pull his party out of Netanyahu's coalition despite the division of Hebron, which further disappointed Lieberman and other right-wing Russian-speakers. This disappointment led to two Yisrael BaAliyah Knesset members,
Michael Nudelman and
Yuri Stern, breaking away from the party to form their own party
Aliyah. For the
1999 legislative election, Lieberman, Nudelman and Stern formed Yisrael Beiteinu, a party whose goal was to represent the right wing of the Russian-speaking community in Israel. The new party won four seats. Due to
Ehud Barak's victory in the 1999 election, the new party sat in the opposition in the new Knesset. On 1 February 2000, while sitting in the opposition, the party joined an alliance with the
National Union, itself an alliance of mainly
Religious Zionist right-wing parties led by
Binyamin Elon, both parties remained fairly independent. The joint list joined
Ariel Sharon's new unity government formed after the
2001 Israeli prime ministerial election. However, it attempted to quit the government just a few months later after Sharon's government gave another neighborhood of Hebron to the Palestinian authority. This move was delayed by
Rehavam Ze'evi's assassination, but the joint list, now led by Lieberman, left the coalition in 2002 anyway. In the
2003 Knesset election the Lieberman-led joint list won seven seats, with his Yisrael Beiteinu being given four of them. The alliance joined Ariel Sharon's government, and Lieberman was made
Minister of Transport; however, the party left the government on 6 June 2004 in response to the
disengagement plan. On 1 February 2006, shortly before the
election that year, the party split from National Union in order to run alone. Lieberman condemned the nomination, and called for the resignation of the Labor Party's head
Amir Peretz, accusing him of harming Israel's security by ceding to "internal rivalries" within the Labor Party, while Peretz accused Yisrael Beiteinu of being a racist party. Yisrael Beiteinu's member of Knesset (MK)
Esterina Tartman referred to Peretz's decision as a "lethal blow to Zionism", adding that Majadale's presence in the
cabinet would damage "Israel's character as a Jewish state" In January 2008 the party left the government in protest against talks with the
Palestinian National Authority, saying certain issues negotiated were not to be tolerated. Lieberman pulled out of the government and left his position as Minister of Strategic Affairs, On 22 December 2008, Lieberman approved the party's list for the
2009 legislative election. In this election Yisrael Beiteinu continued to try and reach out to new demographics. As part of this attempt, the party added
Orly Levy (daughter of former
Likud MK
David Levy, a figure highly respected by Israel's
Mizrahi community) and Likud minister
Uzi Landau to its list. Yisrael Beiteinu ran a highly controversial election campaign, featuring the slogans: "No citizenship without loyalty" and "Only Lieberman understands
Arabic"; these slogans were considered racist by many Israelis. These moves were a great success for Yisraeli Beiteinu, and polling showed that it could win as many as 21 seats in the Knesset. In the end, the party won 15 seats in the Knesset, making it the third-largest after Kadima (28) and Likud (27); this was the party's best election result in its history. In March 2009, Yisrael Beiteinu joined Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, and party leader Avigdor Lieberman became
Deputy Prime Minister and
Foreign Affairs Minister; the party also received four other ministerial portfolios, and one deputy minister post. On 25 October 2012, Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Yisrael Beiteinu and Likud would run together on a single ballot in Israel's 22 January 2013 general elections known as
Likud Yisrael Beiteinu. "In view of the challenges we're facing, we need responsibility on a national level ... We're providing a true alternative, and an opportunity for the citizens to stabilize leadership and government", Lieberman said. The joint list was not very successful in the
2013 elections, as the combined seats of the two parties dropped from 42 to 31. Despite the fall in strength, the joint list was still able to lead Israel's new government, and Yisrael Beiteinu retained most of its strength by holding 13 seats in the joint list. Lieberman was reappointed as Netanyahu's foreign minister. The alliance was officially dissolved on 9 July 2014, and the two parties did not run together in the next elections. On 24 December, Yisrael Beiteinu was hit by a major corruption scandal, which greatly hurt the party's image in the public eye and its standing in the polls. The
2015 elections were a disaster for Yisrael Beiteinu, as the party plummeted to just 6 MKs, losing over half its strength in the Knesset. Many of the party's former Knesset Members, such as
Faina Kirschenbaum were implicated in the corruption scandal that hit the party, and therefore Lieberman had to reshuffle his list and bring forth many new people, such as the journalist
Sharon Gal. Despite supporting the formation of a government by Netanyahu, Lieberman chose to keep his party in the opposition, due to personal disputes with Netanyahu and ideological disputes with the
Haredi parties such as
Shas and
United Torah Judaism. On 26 May 2016, Yisrael Beiteinu joined Netanyahu's coalition, Lieberman himself was appointed as
Minister of Defense. Orly Levy left the party over the entry into the coalition and sat as an independent Knesset Member until the next elections, where she went on to found the
Gesher party. On 14 November 2018, Lieberman announced his resignation from the Israeli government, in protest to a new Gaza ceasefire. On 16 November 2018, Netanyahu stated that he would name himself the new Defense Minister. As a result of Lieberman's departure, Yisrael Beiteinu also quit Netanyahu's coalition government. Lieberman's resignation was completed on 18 November 2018. The narrow government that followed Yisrael Beiteinu's departure led to Netanyahu calling a new election. In the resulting
2019 elections, Yisrael Beiteinu ran a campaign focused on branding itself as a party for the "Secular Right", and focused on the issue of conscripting Haredi Jews while simultaneously supporting aggressive security policy against Palestinian terrorism. During the election period, polling showed that Yisrael Beiteinu was at risk of falling below the electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset for the first time in its history, however, despite these polls, the party managed to get 5 seats in the new Knesset, giving it the ability to decide whether Netanyahu formed a right-wing government. The government formation in 2019 was somewhat of a repeat of the situation in the previous elections; Yisrael Beiteinu supported Netanyahu to form a government, but refused to join it, citing an ideological dispute with the Haredi parties over a law on
Haredi conscription for remaining in the opposition. Lieberman's refusal to join Netanyahu's coalition led to
new elections being called. On 15 June 2019, ahead of the September 2019 elections, Lieberman announced that Yisrael Beiteinu would only support a national-unity government composed of Likud and the centrist
Blue and White and devoid of Haredi parties. In an interview with Israel's
Channel 13, Lieberman said: "We will aim for a government with Likud and with Kahol Lavan, and that will be an emergency government, a national-liberal government...We will do everything to limit the Haredim, so that they won't enter the government" Following the
2020 Israeli legislative election, Yisrael Beiteinu won seven seats, losing one. The party endorsed
Benny Gantz for prime minister, before entering the opposition. In his campaign for the
2021 Israeli legislative election, Lieberman said he would be opposed to any coalition which included the Haredim, as well as any led by
Benjamin Netanyahu, and would even be willing to go along with left-wing
Meretz. The party received seven seats again, and joined the coalition with Lieberman as
finance minister. ==Organization==