Avidgor Liberman
Avidgor LibermanKobi Richter/TPS

Yisrael Beytenu will vote against granting immunity to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, MK and Yisrael Beytenu part chairman Avidgor Liberman announced Wednesday night.

Speaking after Netanyahu announced he would request immunity from the Knesset, Liberman castigated the Prime Minister for his immunity request.

“Now it is clear beyond any doubt: the only thing that mattered to Netanyahu or that matters to him now is immunity. He thinks about it when he wakes up in the morning, he lives and breathes it during the day, and he goes to sleep with it.”

Liberman went on to say that Netanyahu was holding Israel “hostage” to his personal problems, and vowed that Yisrael Beytenu would vote against Netanyahu’s request for immunity.

“The State of Israel has become the hostage of a personal problem of Netanyahu. He doesn’t care about Left, Right, religious or secular. The one thing that he cares about is getting a coalition for immunity. Everything else is just old wives tales.”

“We, Yisrael Beytenu, will not be part of an immunity coalition. All of us, unanimously, will vote against granting immunity to Netanyahu.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Netanyahu announced that he would request immunity from the Knesset.

Once the request is formally received by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud), the Knesset’s House Committee is obligated to consider the request, and vote to approve or reject it.

The House Committee has not been formed for the 22nd Knesset, however, as no government was formed, leaving a caretaker government in power.

If a House Committee is formed for the 22nd Knesset, and the request for immunity is taken up and approved by the committee, the full Knesset plenum must vote on the request before it can go into effect. If approved, the immunity will last until the end of the Knesset’s term.