Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday night blasted Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu following an incident in which a former Yisrael Beytenu Party activist claimed Liberman once offered him $100,000 to kill a police superintendent.
The activist, Yossi Kamisa, recently claimed on social media that Liberman made the offer to him 20 years ago. Liberman denied the claim and accused Netanyahu of orchestrating the affair in an attempt to smear Liberman ahead of the upcoming elections.
"Yossi Kamisa is not important, Benjamin Netanyahu is. He understands that I am what separates him from the government. The man built a poison machine, a cyanide machine - and he is poisoning the entire political system and the entire public atmosphere in the State of Israel,” Liberman charged in an interview with Channel 12 News on Saturday night.
“Yesterday I saw 10,000 bots attacking my Instagram page. We are trying to track them down and find out who paid them, and Yossi Kamisa is just a small cog in the machine," added the Finance Minister.
"Kamisa has never been my assistant or adviser. The man tried to get on the Yisrael Beytenu slate - and ultimately he didn't succeed. The same is true in the Likud. The funniest thing is that in 2017 he ran for the head of the Ma'ale Yosef Regional Council [in the Upper Galilee]. When asked why people should vote for him, he wrote, ‘I was with people such as Ariel Sharon and Avigdor Liberman.’”
Asked whether he believes Netanyahu sent Kamisa to smear him, Liberman replied, "You should ask Kamisa how many times in the past year he has met Netanyahu's associates, how many times he talked to them about this issue and whether they promised him any assistance for this. His lawyer recently tried to run on the Likud slate."
The Likud responded to Liberman's remarks and said, "Liberman is a liar and an instigator, he should be tested through a polygraph. Let's hope he doesn't offer anyone $100,000 to eliminate Netanyahu."