Our sunshine
Israeli tech on board NASA’s solar probe
Education Minister Naftali Bennett wants to give Israeli citizenship to “tens of thousands” of Palestinians, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Tuesday.
He spoke with reporters during a tour of the Karnei Shomron settlement in which the Yisrael Beytenu leader touted his record as a right-wing leader and took potshots at his rival Bennett, who heads Bayit Yehudi.
Among other things, Liberman spoke against Bennett’s well-known plan to annex Area C to sovereign Israel, including the Palestinians who live there, which could number up to 300,000.
“I live in Nokdim [a West Bank settlement] in the Judean Dessert and he lives in Ra’anana [a city outside of Tel Aviv],” Liberman said, further claiming that Bennett has decided to destroy the current right-wing government and has already opened his election campaign.
“I suggest he stick with education, but he is apparently interested neither in education or security, so he has turned to politics. I prefer to stick with security,” Liberman said.
The fight between the two ministers, whose parties compete over votes from the Right, resumed last week when Bennett said Liberman’s Gaza policies were a failure that were endangering residents of the South. Liberman took to the airwaves to defend himself and attack Bennett in radio interviews on Tuesday morning.
“Bennett has blamed me for everything but global warming and the failures of the Barcelona and Hapoel Beersheba soccer teams,” Liberman told Army Radio. “He is ready to sacrifice both our security and our education system just to get one more mandate for his party.”
Liberman said that Bennett was acting as if his election campaign had already begun. The next election is set for November 2019, but there has been speculation that Netanyahu will advance the election following the return of the Knesset from its extended summer and holiday recess on October 15.
Bennett responded with a statement with further attacks on Liberman. “I expect Liberman to attack Hamas and not me,” he said. “Liberman’s policies against Hamas are weak and leftist. He is pulling the entire government leftward, while Hamas displays more and more chutzpa day-by-day.”
Bennett reiterated the demand he has made for months that anyone who launches an incendiary balloon from the Gaza Strip be shot and treated like terrorists instead of like innocent children.
Opposition Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah condemned the Bennett-Liberman exchange as “irresponsible.”
“Israel has never had a more irresponsible and loose-tongued cabinet than the current one,” Shelah said in a statement released by his office. “The education minister is attacking the defense minister, leaks follow one on the other, and all of this under the direction of the prime minister, who simply doesn’t care.”