Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government on Saturday.
Days after accusing Netanyahu of holding secret talks with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Liberman blasted the government’s policy with respect to Hamas and Gaza, accusing Netanyahu of holding secret, indirect talks with Hamas.
“The government has adopted a wrong policy,” Liberman said at an event in Be’er Sheva. “It enables Hamas to continue to build its terrorist infrastructure and develop its power so that it can start a war whenever it sees fit. If everyone says the next confrontation is inevitable, why allow Hamas to continue to grow stronger? So they can go to war when it’s convenient for them?”
“This government's policy is a defeatist and weak one, it’s a leadership that is not capable, not mentally, not psychologically and not personally to deal with the challenges on the agenda,” Liberman charged. “This government does not know how to make decisions and is afraid to fight terrorism. We must defeat terrorism and not contain it.”
He went on to claim that “Israel is negotiating with Hamas through Egypt and the UN’s Middle East envoy Nikolay Mladenov. Dozens of messages were transferred from Israel to Hamas in order to buy silence and to pass on the problem to those who come after. This is what this government does: buys time and passes the problem to whoever comes next.”
The Likud responded to the attack by accusing Liberman of planning to join Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid in order to run jointly in the next election.
“Liberman is trying to make a career change from a failed political commentator to a failed military commentator who does not meet his own threshold requirements,” said the Likud.
“A person who has never in his life led not even one soldier to the battlefield and has not made one operational decision, a man who never once survived a cabinet meeting from beginning to end, cannot be a military analyst. And if he’s not an analyst, he’s only a small, loudmouthed politician who insists on giving advice to those who run the country firmly and responsibly,” the statement added.
“Liberman joined the left after the elections and is currently working to run with Lapid in order to form a leftist government. He proved one thing: In the moment of truth, Liberman chooses the left,” the Likud charged.