Do you think that Netanyahu will be able to survive this politically?
I think it strengthens him. This is a leftist political putsch. Many people recognize that. Until the police recommendations, I had thought that we would be going to elections this year. Now, I think that elections will not take place any time soon.
You are not among those who are calling on Netanyahu to go home.
No. I think that Netanyahu should go home, but for the right reasons. Netanyahu should go home because he is a strategic danger to the State of Israel. He should not go home because of a political putsch. If I didn’t think that he should go home for strategic reasons, this leftist political agenda hounding him - and there is no doubt that that is what is happening here – it would have pushed me into his arms, as it is pushing many on the Right.
The stories of the cigars and the champagne reflect improper conduct of a prime minister. Problematic conduct can be found against almost everyone in the public service. But when you compare Netanyahu’s conduct to Shimon Peres, for example, or Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak or Ariel Sharon after he announced his plans for the Disengagement – Netanyahu looks like an innocent baby.
More than corruption bothers me – and I paid a steep price for my battle against corruption when I was in the Knesset – I am deeply concerned about the ability of people who were not elected to overthrow the government. And that is what is happening here. That is why I support the French law, which limits a prime minister to two terms, but does not allow investigations to be opened against an incumbent prime minister until he has completed his term.
Why should Netanyahu go home in your opinion?
Netanyahu has never had a strategy. His strategy can be defined as “Let’s progress politically and we’ll see what happens tomorrow”. Netanyahu is a very weak leader. You surely remember the iconic photograph of Gilad Shalit exiting the plane that brought him home. For that populist photograph, Netanyahu exchanged one bereaved mother for one hundred bereaved mothers, and the account is still open. Even Olmert said last week that he did not accept the Shalit deal, even with more favorable conditions for Israel.
But Israel’s foreign relations position is excellent right now.
In my eyes, Netanyahu is a prime minister who, over the last decade, has critically weakened Israel’s strategic position. Haven’t you noticed that Netanyahu is not capable of putting metal detectors on the Temple Mount? Haven’t you noticed that Iran and its destructive arsenal is now on our border fence? Our children and grandchildren will live here in the shadow of a nuclear Middle East because of Netanyahu. Because he transferred the responsibility to deal with the greatest existential threat that Israel faces from our own means - to the Obama administration. And found himself outside the conference room on Israel’s future, which is reminiscent of the Czechs at the Munich Accords. That is why he has to go home.
But under Netanyahu’s administration we have improved relations with Russia.
Russia? Russia has provided the umbrella for Iran to advance to our border. Every time that Netanyahu has run to Putin over the last half a year has turned Israel into a more pitiful floor rag. It is absurd. The skies of Syria have been open for Israeli fighter jets for decades. Suddenly there are new rules in the neighborhood and our fighter jets cannot even cross our border.
What would you do if you were prime minister? After all, the Middle East is a dangerous neighborhood and not everything is dependent upon us.
You can have the strongest army, the most advanced weapons and a booming economy. But when you don’t have a strategy and you are facing off against a country like Iran that has a clear strategy, ultimately it will reach from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea and your planes can no longer cross your border. What we need to do, as detailed in the Zehut platform, is to nullify the Oslo Accords and to embark upon a completely different diplomatic process. Declare Israeli sovereignty from the Sea to the Jordan River, as detailed in the platform. What Israel needs is strategy. No Israeli leader – including the Right and including Begin – has ever had that.
What is the alternative? Would it be better for the leftist Labor party to rule Israel?
The alternative is to start building the alternative. The problem is both Right and Left. The Left brought Oslo upon us, but almost all the retreats and settlement destructions were perpetrated by the Right. The alternative is not Right or Left. The alternative is the Zehut party, with its platform that includes everyone and proposes solid, out-of-the-box solutions for the entire gamut of issues that Israel faces.
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