Mayor of Tiberias Ron Kubi announcing that he is founding a new party and running for Knesset fascinates me.

Kubi has not been successful getting together a coalition in Tiberias and has not been able to pass the budget there. He is under threat from the Ministry of Interior for removal from office. He has name recognition, but no real accomplishments other than angering the Haredi politicians. It does seem though that when running for office name recognition is the most important factor, so at least he has that.

When the idea was first publicized a few days ago, the Haredi press celebrated saying this is directly against Lieberman and will take away votes from him. That made me wonder how they forgot that he has fought them and attacked them far worse than Lieberman ever did and if he makes it into the Knesset, which won't necessarily happen, he is sure to continue along that line. They dont have much about this to be happy about.

Others thought it is just to help Netanyahu. They seem to be friends, and in the past Kubi has spoken out in support of Netanyahu. And Netanyahu wants to hurt Lieberman's chances of getting in. So maybe. But still, even if it all pans out with Kubi hurting Lieberman and getting into the Knesset, Netanyahu's other coalition partners won't be happy about it.

Then yesterday Kubi himself attacked the Haredi politicians when explaining why he is running. He also said he will demand the Ministry of Interior and take it away from Deri. Again,  another reason this does not make sense and why the Haredi parties being happy about this does not make sense. In Tiberias the Haredi parties have refused to cooperate with anything Kubi has tried to do - in the Knesset they will play nicer together?

He might just be running as the next natural step after some municipal success (in winning the elections with some added fame). He might be running to save himself from the problems of Tiberias and the risk of getting removed from office. He might be running to help Bibi, to hurt Lieberman and/or to fight the Haredi parties, or any combination of reasons, these or others. He definitely makes the upcoming elections more interesting.

I am not sure it is accurate to call Avigdor Lieberman anti-haredi, as he has been called recently. He has worked very well in the past with the Haredi parties and has never really pushed any anti-haredi agenda. The closest he got is this last government when he insisted on the draft law being passed as it had been formulated by the Defense Ministry without changes. Does that one item make him anti-haredi? He never insisted on forcing secular studies in Haredi schools, never called for lowering budgets to yeshivas or cutting child allowances or anything like that. But, since he is being called anti-haredi, between Lieberman, Lapid and Kubi, assuming they and their parties all get into the Knesset, the Haredi parties will have their most challenging, and probably difficult, Knesset ever. I wonder if they will have ever had more [perceived] enemies in the Knesset than in this coming one.

Personally I think Lieberman and Kubi will both hurt the Likud more than anything will hurt Yisrael Beyteynu in these elections, but that remains to be seen. The best scenario, for Netanyahu, I think, is Kubi hurting Lieberman and taking away enough votes that Lieberman does not get in, but also Kubi himself not passing the minimum threshold. Then Netanyahu has knocked out Lieberman and owes nothing to another potential coalition partner who would have friction with the others.