Livni: Set aside egos, create bloc that can win elections

Times of Israel staff

Zionist Union MK says public must decide who will lead a new faction that will stop ‘evil’ Netanyahu government.

MK Tzipi Livni during a Zionist Union party meeting in the Knesset, March 28, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A ay after branding the appointment of Avigdor Liberman as defense minister a national “crisis of ethics,” Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni called Saturday for Israeli politicians to set aside personal ambitions and work together to defeat the “evil” government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By uniting, she said, lawmakers could create a bloc capable of winning the public’s trust at the next elections.

“There is the hope that this is now an opportunity for all those who see what’s happening to unite into one major camp to fight — all the parties that represent values different to the ones that this government represents,” Livni wrote on Facebook. “We have to tell the truth: the parties’ political sagas are far less important right now, and that includes the Labor party primaries. The important thing is to now stand up together and produce an alternative bloc that can win the public trust,” she said.

“I call on the public to decide who will lead the bloc that will stop this evil government. Ego battles must be put aside. I hope that those who rejected this idea in the past now understand that it is clear that the future of Israel’s values are at stake, it’s the right thing to do. The public will decide between those who prefer their own egos and those who put the state before themselves.”

Livni told Channel 2 television on Friday night that the prime minister’s decision to appoint the far-right Yisrael Beytenu leader as defense minister and oust former IDF chief Moshe Ya’alon from the position “is not merely a political event.”

“This is a crisis — not only of leadership but of ethics,” she said. Netanyahu, she continued, “had a choice between two ministers of defense, one who backed the army’s code of ethics and its top echelons and its commanders, and the second who went to demonstrate against them.” She was referring to Liberman’s s show of solidarity at the military courthouse where Elor Azaria, the soldier who in March shot dead a wounded Palestinian attacker in Hebron, was on trial for manslaughter.

MK Merav Michaeli of the Zionist Union party at the Knesset,
November 02, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Zionist Union MK Merav Michaeli made a similar appeal Saturday, urging Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of the 10-seat Kulanu party “to immediately leave the dangerous Netanyahu government and establish a sane government.”

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Michaeli also dismissed calls from members of the Zionist Union — among them its leader Isaac Herzog — to bring Ya’alon into the party.

“Ya’alon is man of the right. Granted, in this delusional and crazy government, he is a balanced and sane voice who safeguards the army and is committed to democracy, but a right-wing man even so. The Zionist Union is not for him,” Michaeli said, according to Army Radio.