‘A capitulation to terrorism’: Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned Wednesday and called for early elections
Israel’s defence minister resigned over the Gaza Strip ceasefire and said the country should hold elections “as soon as possible.”
Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman, who has urged the government to strike a harsh blow against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, quit after the security cabinet decided to accept a truce halting a two-day flare-up of fighting in Gaza.
The ceasefire, and attempts to reach a long-term truce are “a capitulation to terrorism,” Liberman said at a news conference. “There’s no other way to look at it.”
He also faulted Netanyahu’s decision to allow Qatar to transfer $15 million to Gaza to ease the dire humanitarian situation there, saying the money would go to support families of militants who attacked Israel.
The frontier was quiet overnight after the most intense round of fighting since a 50-day war in 2014. Palestinian militants fired 460 rockets and mortars into Israel in a 24-hour period, while the Israeli military carried out airstrikes on 160 Gaza targets. Seven Palestinians, including five militants, were killed. In Israel, one person was killed in a rocket strike and three were critically wounded.
Demonstrators each week have approach the border fence, throwing firebombs, grenades and burning tires at Israeli troops. Israeli snipers have killed about 170 people, most of them unarmed. Israel says it is defending its border against attackers, but it has come under heavy international criticism for shooting unarmed people.
In southern Israel, news of the cease-fire was greeted with anger as dozens of protesters in the rocket-battered town of Sderot chanted “Disgrace!” at what they saw as the government’s capitulation to violence and its inability to provide them with safety. Recent months have seen sporadic rocket attacks as well as militant infiltration attempts and a wave of incendiary kites that have destroyed Israeli crops.
“We are third-class citizens here in Sderot and the communities on the border with Gaza,” complained David Maimon, a local resident. “It’s a shame. Instead of helping us and letting us live quietly, they let us suffer.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the decision to step back from a full-blown conflict as a unified one made by his Security Cabinet and based on the military’s recommendations.
Liberman’s resignation follows months of speculation about whether the prime minister will dissolve the government and move up elections, now scheduled for November 2019.
Liberman’s decision to leave his five-member Yisrael Beitenu faction in the coalition didn’t necessarily ensure it would remain intact. The Israel Hayom newspaper, without saying where it got the information, reported that the eight-seat Jewish Home party will also pull out of the government if its chairman, Naftali Bennett, doesn’t receive the defence portfolio. If the party quits, that would leave Netanyahu without a parliamentary majority.
A two-year-old corruption probe against Netanyahu is inching toward conclusion, with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit due to decide whether to indict him in three separate cases. Some commentators have reasoned that if the prime minister goes to early elections and wins big, it would be harder for Mandelblit to take action against him.
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and has contended he’s the victim of a leftist cabal out to bring down his conservative government. Polls have shown he’d win an early election.
Liberman has had a volatile history with Netanyahu, joining forces then bolting several times in the two-plus decades in which their political careers have crossed. A defence hawk, he joined the government in May 2016 after Netanyahu forced out his previous defence minister, Moshe Yaalon.
