Lieberman: The ‘Generals’ Lost Opportunity to Get Rid of Netanyahu

Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. (Reuters)
Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. (Reuters)
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Lieberman: The ‘Generals’ Lost Opportunity to Get Rid of Netanyahu

Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. (Reuters)
Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. (Reuters)

Israel’s former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman slammed Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and MP Gabi Ashkenazi, saying that both men, who served as chiefs of staff, are “not smart” and their arrogance prevents them from taking advice from those more skilled in politics, such as himself.

Lieberman, in an interview with the Maariv daily, said that Blue and White has lost the chance to get rid of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule in Israel.

Lacking political wisdom, the party has become a personal tool used by Netanyahu to escape trial, he added.

When asked about the possibility Gantz will eventually replace Netanyahu at the helm in a year and a half as part of a rotation agreement, Lieberman said that Netanyahu will make Gantz’s life “a living hell” until he will “resign on his own accord.”

Lieberman, the leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party, was speaking at a time when negotiations to form a government had failed, because Netanyahu had at the last minute backed away from his agreement with Gantz.

After deal to form government was said to be close, Gantz’s party accused Netanyahu’s Likud of seeking to renegotiate understandings.

“After reaching understandings on all issues, the Likud party asked to re-open discussions regarding the committee to appoint judges. In light of this, negotiations have been halted. We will not allow any change in the functioning of the judiciary nor damage to democracy,” Blue and White said in a statement.

Netanyahu and Gantz, however, have agreed to resume negotiations again after Easter.

Lieberman pointed out that Netanyahu's goal now is to end Gantz's appointment to head the government, which ends after three days.

“I will not be surprised if I see Gantz's party broken in the upcoming elections,” Lieberman said.

When asked about the possibility that Netanyahu might annex the Jordan Valley, or perhaps parts of the West Bank under the so-called Deal of the Century offered by US President Donald Trump, Lieberman said that the only goal Netanyahu has is to reach the needed 63-64 voices he needs in the Knesset to pass any legislation he needs to avoid standing trial.

Netanyahu was meant to begin trial for alleged corruption and breach of trust in March, but after Justice Minister Amir Ohana shut down the regular functions of the courts due to COVID-19, the date had been postponed to May.



North Korea Says Kim-Trump Ties Are ‘Not Bad’ but It’s Not Giving up Its Nuclear Weapons 

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (AP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (AP)
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North Korea Says Kim-Trump Ties Are ‘Not Bad’ but It’s Not Giving up Its Nuclear Weapons 

US President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (AP)
US President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (AP)

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismissed the US's intent to resume diplomacy on North Korea’s denuclearization, as she urged Washington to accept her country as a nuclear weapons state and find a new approach to restart talks.

Kim Yo Jong's statement suggested North Korea would only return to talks if the US rewards it for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability. Some experts say US President Donald Trump could still pursue talks with North Korea to make a diplomatic achievement.

Trump has recently bragged of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed hopes of restarting nuclear diplomacy between them. Their high-stakes diplomacy in 2018-19 that occurred during Trump's first term unraveled after Trump rejected Kim’s calls for extensive sanctions relief in return for dismantling his main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. Kim has since executed weapons tests to modernize and expand his nuclear arsenal.

In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong said she doesn’t deny the personal relationship between her brother and Trump “is not bad.” But she said if their personal relations are to serve the purpose of North Korea’s denuclearization, North Korea would view it as “nothing but a mockery.”

She said North Korea's nuclear capability has sharply increased since the first round of the Kim-Trump diplomacy and that any attempt to deny North Korea as a nuclear weapons state would be rejected.

“If the US fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK- US meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the US side,” Kim Yo Jong said, referring to her country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

She said it would be “advisable to seek another way of contact."

Kim Yo Jong is a key official on the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. She handles the country’s relations with South Korea and the United States, and South Korean officials and experts believe she is the North’s second-most powerful person after her brother.

Kim Yo Jong said she was responding to reported comments by a US official that Trump is open to talks on denuclearization. She likely was referring to a Saturday article by Yonhap news agency that cited an unidentified White House official as saying Trump “remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearized North Korea.”

“North Korea wants to say it's not interested in talks on denuclearization and the US must determine what benefits it can give to the North first,” said Nam Sung-wook, a former head of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea’s spy agency.

Nam said Trump's likely desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize would prompt him to seek talks with Kim Jong Un and give him corresponding benefits for taking phased denuclearization steps. Nam said North Korea would want broad sanctions relief, a suspension of US-South Korea military drills that it regards as invasion rehearsals and other economic incentives.

Kim Yeol Soo, an analyst at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said US and North Korean officials could meet if they narrow some differences on terms for restoring talks. But he said Trump's unpredictability would make it extremely difficult to predict what concessions the Americans would offer.

Other experts have earlier said that North Korea — now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia — sees no urgent need to resume diplomacy with the US and South Korea. On Monday, Kim Yo Jong rebuffed overtures by South Korea’s new liberal government, saying its “blind trust” in the country’s alliance with the US and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor.

Nam said prospects for an early resumption of US-North Korea diplomacy would depend on whether the Russia-Ukraine war ends soon and US tariff negotiations with other countries are proceeded in a direction that Trump wants.

Kim, the analyst, said Trump may use his likely attendance of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea this autumn as a chance to travel on to North Korea or a Korean border village to meet Kim Jong Un. Kim Yo Jong on Monday described as “a daydream” a reported South Korean idea of inviting her brother to the regional summit.