Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to build in the E1 area and Foreign
Minister Avigdor Liberman’s statements criticizing European governments are
electioneering, not policy, Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich said on
Wednesday.
Yacimovich panned Liberman’s speech at The Jerusalem Post
Diplomatic Conference earlier in the day, in which he said Europe would
sacrifice Israel to mollify Islamic radicals “without batting an eyelash,” and
that Israel “will not be a second Czechoslovakia,” a reference to efforts to
appease Nazi Germany before World War II.
“Liberman’s behavior is
corrupt, extremist, wild electioneering. Liberman is a corrupt and dangerous
man,” she said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, in which she presented a plan
to rehabilitate the public health system in light of the ongoing nurses’
strike.
According to Yacimovich, Liberman and Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu’s weakness is socioeconomic issues, and therefore they are drawing the
public’s attention away from such matters.
“Holocaust metaphors and
stirring up emotions are not aimed at answering the real questions of our lives
here,” she said. “Liberman’s irresponsible words are meant to drag [the public]
into an arena in which he and Netanyahu feel comfortable.”
Netanyahu does
not really plan to build in E1 in Ma’aleh Adumim, Yacimovich claimed, he just
wants the public to talk about E1 as opposed to the nurses’
strike.
Yacimovich said that criticism from Europe, the recent UN vote
upgrading the Palestinian Authority’s status and shaky relations with the US
serve Netanyahu and Liberman “in a field in which inciting words are stronger
than the real agenda.
“I commit to not let Liberman set the agenda for
this election, and ask the public not to let him do so, either,” she said.
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