MK Ofir Sofer
MK Ofir SoferCredit: Hezki Baruch

MK Ofir Sofer (Union of Right-Wing Parties) sees MK Avigdor Liberman as the sole person responsible for the repeat elections and says that he lost the right to sit in a future right-wing government.

In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Sofer said that his party's members were active in trying to mediate between Netanyahu and Lieberman: "What stood out was that they tried to come towards him, tried to offer him all possible solutions, and there was good will in every direction to reach an agreement, except from Liberman."

"I have a hard time deciphering this behavior. It's possible that at a certain point in life you become irrelevant and honor become the main thing in your life - you want to show that 'my word is my word.' But to take advantage of a country only to explain that 'my word is my word' - in a matter that you yourself know is not substantial and referring to something in another six years. But apparently there was no real intention to reach an agreement."

Sofer notes that he himself was not privy to all the details of the negotiations and mediation attempts, but to the best of his understanding and the information he was given, the haredi parties were willing to compromise "but at the end, Lieberman simply wanted something else."

We asked Sofer about the future of his party and the possibility of Bennett and Shaked's return. "Religious Zionism has a very traditional home, comprised of Bayit Yehudi and the National Union, and that's where things have to happen. It's a shame to go in other directions, such as the New Right."

"The whole saga began with the tragedy of the New Right. If we had two more seats or one more mandate, we would be in a completely different place today," says Sofer.

Sofer doesn't believe that there's any possibility of Liberman sitting in the same coalition with Netanyahu anymore. "We've seen everything already, but we've never seen what we saw last night, so I'm not sure everything is possible. I think it's over. Why should right-wing voters vote for Lieberman, who took the most irresponsible attitude towards the right?