Liberman
LibermanPhoto by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avidgor Liberman rejected claims by the Likud party that he is to blame for the current impasse in the Likud’s attempt’s to form a new coalition government.

In a Facebook post Sunday, MK Liberman accused the Likud of ‘lying’ to the Israeli people by placing the blame on Yisrael Beytenu’s demand that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commit to passing Liberman’s haredi draft bill.

“During the elections, we promised to back Netanyahu as prime minister, and alongside this we presented a very clear platform: security, immigration and absorption, religion and state. The draft of yeshiva students is one of the central issues for Yisrael Beytenu.”

“After the elections, as we promised, we recommended to the president Binyamin Netanyahu as the candidate to form the government. That being said, we did not obligate ourselves to give in to the Likud or to surrender our basic principles. At every appearance I made before the elections, during the elections, and after the elections, I made it very clear that we won’t make any concessions on the issue of the draft, which was already brought up for the first vote as compromise,” Liberman continued, referring to the initial vote on the haredi draft bill last year.

Liberman went on to accuse the Likud and Prime Minister Netanyahu of failing to uphold previous coalition agreements with Yisrael Beytenu.

“We support a nationalist government,” said Liberman, adding “we’re against a haredi government! When we talk about promises and a right-wing government, it is important to remember that Binyamin Netanyahu himself signed a coalition agreement with Yisrael Beytenu back in 2009 to overthrow the Hamas government [in Gaza]. It was Netanyahu who signed an agreement with Yisrael Beytenu in 2016, vowing to support the death penalty for terrorists law, a law which he himself torpedoed later on. Netanyahu is the one who torpedoed the evacuation of the illegal Palestinian buildings at Khan al-Ahmar and Sussya, despite permission from the Supreme Court,” to demolish the structures.

“I call on the members of the Likud: stop lying to the people of Israel and saying that Yisrael Beytenu is making up reasons not to join the government. Promise to pass the draft law for the second and third readings, based on the original version of the bill, and then you’ll see that everything will fall into place.”