The Russian-speaking vote in Israel

Sderot, from our correspondent. Avigdor Lieberman has never lost that smirk of someone who claims to carry a lot of weight even when his actual influence is minimal. The Israel Beitenu leader’s contribution to Israeli politics is measured in the number of dirty tricks he has played – he has pulled them on everyone. He is a pendulum which, as it swings from right to left, wreaks havoc; and, once again, he has begun to undermine any sense of balance even before the electoral process has concluded. His influence is also measured in delays – those spent on indecision, such as when he went to Minsk, leaving Israel in limbo whilst he decided whether to side with the majority or the opposition. Lieberman is right-wing, nationalist and secular; a few years ago, Haaretz published a cartoon depicting him with wolf’s fangs, intent on tearing apart allies and Palestinians. He has also tried to tear apart Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is a daunting task, fang against fang, and after ruling out an alliance with the Prime Minister for a number of reasons – foremost among them compulsory military service for the ultra-Orthodox, which the leader of Israel Beitenu has made a key issue – he began to harass Gadi Eisenkot, accusing him one moment of forming a government with the Arabs, and the next of doing so with Netanyahu. In this election campaign, Eisenkot has adopted a policy of non-response; being taciturn and a terrible public speaker, he has ignored the attempts to trip him up.

Lieberman’s defining characteristics are his promises, his intransigence and a distinctive accent about which there are various accounts. 

The leader of Israel Beitenu was born in Chisinau when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union; he speaks Russian and his Hebrew betrays his origins. No one knows whether this is a quirk, political opportunism, linguistic nostalgia or simply a fact. Some argue that he is meticulous about retaining his accent because the Russian-speaking vote carries significant weight—a 15 percent share that even Netanyahu closely monitors, to the point of appointing a native Russian speaker to oversee part of his election campaign. Lieberman and Bibi are used to vying for the Russian-speaking vote; they’ve been jostling for it for years, but today the electorate is more diverse: there are young people born in Israel to immigrant parents, and there are new arrivals from the war. “I’m voting for Bibi,” says Yosef, who was born in Moscow, with conviction, “it’s a beautiful city, but I wouldn’tt there anymore”, though if Moscow were in Israel he’d be quite happy. “Bibi’s clever; I’ve had enough of Lieberman.” Russian is a language you hear more often than Arabic on the streets of Israel; in some venues, conversations sometimes start straight away in Russian.

Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a new wave of migration has emerged, dubbed ‘Putin’s aliyah’, as it was the Kremlin leader himself who triggered it with his war. These new voters—who could well be worth two or three seats—differ from the Russian-speaking population that had previously been drawn to Netanyahu: they do not approve of his government, his diplomacy with Russia, his phone calls to Putin, or his relationship with the religious parties. These new Russian-speaking arrivals in Israel are all up for the taking; rather than Lieberman, they appreciate secularism and even a few election promises. “He’s the only one talking about our integration, about the support we need. These are the things that matter,” says Igor, a taxi driver, after striking up the conversation in Russian without even considering that, in these parts, it is neither a lingua franca nor an official language. The surprise lies at the heart of the matter, and it is there that Lieberman’s smirk falls flat and Netanyahu’s courtship falls short – it is the Russian-speaking segment that the two have not bothered to understand. It cannot be won over by an accent; it is not nostalgic; it looks elsewhere.