Likud open to Liberman joining coalition, Education Minister Kisch tells ‘Post’ - interview

Likud could seek to bring opposition parties into a Netanyahu-led government, with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman a possible partner, Education Minister Yoav Kisch told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, while categorically ruling out a coalition with Democrats leader Yair Golan.“Maybe he can join us,” Kisch said. “But he needs to understand that this government is going to continue to lead Israel's agenda with force and strength, and make sure that nobody threatens us.”Kisch said a potential partner would have to support controlling Israel's borders, preventing threats from developing, and using military force when necessary.“So if he will change and understand that he goes with the right to a really clear path of controlling our borders, making sure that nobody threatens us, and using force when needed, then he could be a partner in that sense as well.”Kisch said Likud would pursue a broader coalition even if its existing partners secured enough seats to govern independently, arguing that opposition parties' refusal to serve under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had deepened Israel's divisions.“I think that if we, as a right-wing government, with the current parties of the coalition, have 61, we'll do all we can to enlarge this coalition, to join other parties from the other side,” he said.“I think boycotting Netanyahu and Likud did huge damage to the State of Israel. I think this should stop now.”Asked about other opposition parties that could join a Likud-led government if its current partners fell short of a majority, Kisch drew an immediate red line around Golan.“I think the one who's not relevant is Golan, by no chance.”He was more open to Liberman, although he made clear that joining would require agreement with the government's security approach.Kisch details Likud's red lines for forming possible coalitionFor Kisch, however, broadening the next government would still require agreement on substantive red lines. He listed opposition to a Palestinian state, maintaining security zones, and strengthening Jewish education among the principles Likud would insist on.“These are for sure the red lines we're not going to cross.”Although Kisch called broadly for parties across the political divide to join, he did not specifically name Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot or B'Yachad leader Naftali Bennett as a prospective coalition partner.Instead, he presented an Eisenkot-led government as the principal alternative to Netanyahu, arguing that it would depend on Golan and the Arab parties.“It's a simple issue of numbers,” he said.Kisch's appeal for a broader coalition also raised the question of whether parties demanding an equal military draft could govern alongside the haredi parties.He argued that increasing haredi enlistment required cooperation with the community, alongside incentives and penalties, rather than an approach centered on imprisonment.“Whoever is really learning in the yeshiva will learn, and the rest must join the army,” he said, and maintained that such an arrangement could bring tens of thousands of recruits into military service.“You need to have carrots and sticks, but you need to work together in order to get them into the army.”Kisch's plans to improve education in next governmentOn his own political future, Kisch said he wanted to remain education minister in the next government and pursue a NIS 15 billion education plan, including reducing class sizes to 20 pupils and moving to a five-day school week.He said the war had constrained investment in education as resources went toward military needs, while the ministry had concentrated on maintaining schooling for displaced children and communities under fire.“Because of the war, we couldn't get new investments in the education system because most of the money went to the army and the war effort,” he said. “Now I think we need to change it.”Kisch also described plans to expand personalized learning through artificial intelligence, including English instruction for seventh- and eighth-grade pupils.Under that model, he said, students would practice individually with AI using phones and headphones while teachers remained in the classroom to help pupils and oversee their learning.“You cannot replace the teacher, because the kid needs to learn how to behave in society and be responsible for what he's doing,” he said.On haredi education, Kisch rejected proposals to withhold all public funding from schools that do not teach a full core curriculum. He argued that funding tied to the extent of core studies offered an incentive to expand those subjects, while cutting support entirely could have the opposite effect.“What's going to happen in that case is that many kids who are studying today at 50% or 75% will drop to nothing,” he said.Kisch opposes Supreme Court President-appointed October 7 inquiryEchoing Likud's stance, Kisch also opposed an October 7 inquiry whose members would be selected by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, arguing that it would not command public confidence across the political divide.He instead advocated an inquiry established jointly by the coalition and opposition, citing the US investigation into the September 11 attacks as a model.“We have to investigate,” he said. “But it has to be an investigation that most of the people will accept.”While the national investigation remains politically contested, Kisch said his own ministry had already conducted an internal review of its response to the war, identifying shortcomings in its ability to track displaced students and coordinate with local authorities.The review, conducted approximately a year after the outbreak of the war, examined what the ministry could have handled differently as tens of thousands of children were evacuated from their homes."One thing is, for example, that the database was an issue in the beginning," Kisch acknowledged.As families were relocated to hotels and temporary accommodation across the country, the ministry struggled to establish where individual students were staying, which communities they had come from, and how to maintain continuity in their education."The kids moved and we had to figure out who is where and where is he staying, where is he from," he explained.Kisch said building a system capable of tracking displaced students required close cooperation with local authorities, an effort that took time to organize.The ministry also confronted situations it had not previously been equipped to handle, including providing support to children who had lost parents or siblings in the attacks.According to Kisch, the ministry established a support mechanism modeled on the military's casualty and bereavement assistance systems."For us, it was the first time to deal with real terror casualties in this sense," he said, describing the challenge of supporting bereaved families and particularly their children.Kisch cited the rapid establishment of schools and kindergartens for evacuees in Eilat, where the population swelled following October 7, as one of his ministry's achievements during the war.Additional investments necessary to improve educationNevertheless, he acknowledged that the conflict had prevented the government from making the additional investments he believed were necessary to improve education.The consequences of prolonged disruption to schooling have become a pressing concern following the publication of Israel's 2025 PISA results, which showed the country's lowest recorded scores in reading, mathematics, and science.The results also showed a deterioration in Israel's international rankings compared with the previous assessment in 2022.Kisch acknowledged that the findings were poor but argued that the decline should be understood in the context of a broader international deterioration in academic performance."The last PISA results were very bad for Israel," he said, but noted that Israel was not alone, and pointed to falling scores in other European countries.He suggested that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic could also have contributed to the decline, although he emphasized that this was his own assessment.Kisch maintained that Israel's relative standing had changed little compared with 2018 - where Israel also ranked below the developed world average - despite the fall in absolute scores.Asked what his ministry intended to do to reverse the decline, he pointed to a new NIS 15 billion program launched in 2025-2026 to strengthen mathematics, science, and English education, alongside additional investment in language instruction.He also outlined plans to expand the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms, including personalized English instruction for seventh- and eighth-grade students nationwide.Under the model he described, students would use phones and headphones to interact individually with AI systems while teachers supervised the classroom and provided additional assistance.Kisch insisted that the technology was not intended to eliminate the role of human teachers but rather to shift their responsibilities toward mentorship, personal guidance, and identifying students' individual difficulties."The teacher is in the classroom, but the kid is studying with his phone and he's with headphones and he's speaking and he's one on one with the AI," he explained.Kisch discusses October 12 field trip explosionThe question of whether the education system has learned sufficient lessons from the war took on renewed urgency following the devastating October 12 explosion of Hezbollah ordnance during a school trip in northern Israel.The blast killed 14-year-old Elazar Yair Wilensky and wounded more than 20 others, prompting questions over why students had been permitted to hike in an area where unexploded munitions remained a danger.The Education Ministry has maintained that the planned route had been approved and did not pass through an area closed by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), despite the organization's warnings about the surrounding area.In the interview, Kisch defended the ministry's approval procedures, explaining that schools must submit their proposed routes to a designated center responsible for checking whether they pass through restricted areas.He said the approved route followed the Israel Trail, which had remained open at the time, while a parallel route had been closed.However, Kisch acknowledged that investigators had yet to establish which route the students actually followed.“I don't know exactly which route they took, actually. This is still under investigation," he said.He confirmed that the rules had since changed, with new restrictions preventing school trips along the previously permitted section of the Israel Trail.Asked whether ministry officials would face consequences if the investigation identified failures in the approval process, Kisch stopped short of committing to specific disciplinary measures."Whatever the consequences are will depend on what the findings will be," he said.Kisch described visiting wounded students in hospital, meeting members of the school community, and attending the shiva following Wilensky's death.He said the ministry was examining its own planning and approval procedures while police investigated what happened during the trip."We are fully investigating both the planning, which is what we did in the ministry, and what actually is going on, which the police are checking," he said.The findings, he added, would determine what further lessons needed to be implemented.