Yisrael Beytenu Chairman MK Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday apologized for claiming that Israel's security forces captured the terrorists who murdered Rina Shnerb on Friday.
"That was a huge problem, and the responsibility is entirely mine," Liberman told Galatz. "I found out about it an hour and a half later. Sometimes there's over-activity, and an energetic spokesperson, and sometimes she acts innocently, but the responsibility is mine."
When asked about the statements from Blue and White leaders MKs Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya'alon that they would defeat Hamas, Liberman said: "We need to take these statements with a grain of salt. What they thought about was responding in Gaza with a general strategy. You can't promise to fight a different battle, it has to be a different way of thinking... The whole idea of accepting it is in my opinion giving in to terror. Paying money to terror organizations - that's something that never happened before."
Gantz is a former IDF Chief of Staff. Ya'alon and Liberman are both former Defense Ministers.
"The first time money was transferred to Hamas, I got up and left the government," Liberman added.
He also claimed the current Cabinet is a "rubber stamp": "Everything the Prime Minister and top IDF staff says is approved automatically. Will there be a dissenting opinion or a serious discussion? That remains to be seen. But I first of all trust the top IDF officials and the Chief of Staff."
"Today I think every decision is made by the Prime Minister, together with the Defense Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff. Obviously they discuss things with individuals in important roles. The Cabinet's opinion carries a lot less weight than it should, there are a lot of new, young, inexperienced people there. And the Prime Minister is running in the elections, running an election campaign, serving as Health Minister, and serving as Defense Minister - that's not a good situation. It's better to have a full-time Defense Minister, especially in a situation such as this."
Though Liberman admitted that 2014's Operation Protective Edge, which occurred during Gantz's term as Chief of Staff, was a "failure," he blamed it on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
"Operation Protective Edge was a failure," he said. "There as well the Prime Minister was very dominant. But what we're deciding today is not Netanyahu or Gantz, we're deciding what kind of country we'll have after the elections. The choice is between Yisrael Beytenu and the Israel of [Transportation Minister Bezalel] Smotrich (Yamina), [Interior Minister Aryeh] Deri (Shas), and [Deputy Health Minister Yakov] Litzman (UTJ)."
"Our goal is to create, immediately after the elections, a liberal nationalist government with three parties: Likud, Blue and White, and Yisrael Beytenu. Without us they can't even talk.
"From my perspective MK Ayman Odeh (Joint Arab List) and the Democratic Union cannot be part of the government, but we also won't sit with the haredim or the messianics."