interview

‘He has no strategy’: Liberman says PM placing ego above national interest

Former defense minister claims Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot and Herzi Halevi dismissed his warning of Hamas invasion in 2016 because they were ‘overconfident’ and ‘arrogant’

Sam Sokol

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman leads a faction meeting in the Knesset, May 20, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman leads a faction meeting in the Knesset, May 20, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s overconfidence and arrogance led him to ignore warnings ahead of October 7,  and he continues to place his “status and his ego” before Israel’s national security needs, Yisrael Beytenu party chief Avigdor Liberman declared this week.

Speaking with The Times of Israel in his Knesset office on Wednesday, the former defense minister and foreign minister accused Netanyahu of politicizing wartime decision-making, claiming that he “has no strategy” and is actively “trying to waste time” and “continue the war until the next elections.”

A former Netanyahu ally, Liberman started his political career in Likud, eventually serving as director-general of the party and, later, the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu in the 1990s. In 1999 he established the more hawkish Yisrael Beytenu after splitting from Likud, over what he saw as Netanyahu’s weak stance on the Palestinian issue.

While he has since served in multiple Netanyahu governments, even running together with Likud in a unified slate in the 2013 elections, Liberman has been highly critical of the prime minister in recent years.

Liberman resigned as defense minister in November 2018, bringing down Netanyahu’s government at the time, following a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza in the wake of a fierce two-day barrage of over 400 rockets fired by Hamas and other terror groups at Israel. He has since spent most of his time in the opposition, barring a stint as finance minister in the 2021-2022 Bennett-Lapid government.

His criticism has continued unabated following October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists from Gaza burst through the border fence and invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman sign a coalition agreement in the Knesset on May 25, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Netanyahu “was overconfident, and of course, arrogant,” Liberman, clad in a short-sleeved dress shirt, declared Wednesday as a nearby television flashed with images of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

A warning unheeded

Liberman asserted he had attempted to warn the prime minister of the dangers of a Hamas attack eight years ago.

In a top secret document presented to Netanyahu in 2016, the then-defense minister warned that Hamas “intends to take the conflict into Israeli territory by sending a significant number of well-trained forces (like the Nukhba [commandos] for example) into Israel to try and capture an Israeli community (or maybe even several communities) on the Gaza border and take hostages.”

Liberman has testified that Netanyahu, then-IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot (now a leading member of the National Unity party) and then-IDF intel chief Herzi Halevi (now head of the IDF) all received the report.

“They think that they know everything,” he said. “All of them told me I don’t understand” and that “it can’t happen.”

Then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, center-right, meets with senior officers in the IDF Southern Command, including IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, center, and Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, right, on June 12, 2018. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)

“I think that they were so self-confident, sticking to their conception” and projecting “our mentality, our psychology onto the other side,” he continued, recalling that IDF brass had explained to him that Hamas felt “a responsibility for the welfare, for the well-being, for all the needs of the Gaza population.”

A comprehensive security strategy

Asked how he views Netanyahu’s handling of the year-long war, Liberman argued that the prime minister “has no strategy.”

He insisted that Israel needs to create a 15-kilometer (9-mile) buffer zone in southern Lebanon from the Mediterranean coast to the Syrian border, somewhat similar to the one that existed there between 1985-2000. That security zone was not a uniform depth as proposed by Liberman, being shallower in some places. Liberman also proposes that anybody who leaves the area would then not be allowed back in.

“We will control this buffer zone for 20, 60, 100 years. We will not move, we will not withdraw before we see a Hezbollah commitment to give up their intention to destroy the State of Israel,” he said.

He advised displaced residents of the north not to return home until such a zone is established.

Liberman’s proposal, which involves extracting “a price from everybody who attacked the State of Israel or intends to destroy the State of Israel,” is part of a greater regional strategy he laid out this week during an anti-terrorism conference at Reichman University.

Completing the disengagement

His suggestions include providing assistance to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government as a counterweight to the Houthis and finishing the 2005 Gaza disengagement by shutting border crossings and ending the supply of water, food and fuel to the Strip.

“We undertook an insane process called disengagement in 2005. We left the Gaza Strip. We evacuated all settlers, all settlements, all synagogues, but we continue to supply everything,” he complained, arguing that disengagement should mean full disengagement and that the Arab League and Egypt can “take responsibility for the Gaza Strip.”

Displaced people arrive in Khan Yunis after being given notice by Israeli forces to evacuate from the eastern parts of the city in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2024. (Bashar Taleb / AFP)

Turning to Iran — which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis and launched a massive salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel last week — Liberman said that Israel’s pending response must be “disproportionate.”

“I think the biggest mistake is to respond proportionally,” because that would “create a new war of attrition with Iran,” which is “the worst-case scenario” for Israel, he warned.

As for the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank, Liberman, who once said he would be willing to evacuate his own settlement of Nokdim as part of a land swap in a peace agreement, said that as far as he’s concerned, a two-state solution “doesn’t exist anymore.”

“After 31 years, it’s time to draw conclusions,” he said, measuring the period since the Oslo Accords were signed. “We will never have any Palestinian leader who will be ready to sign an end of the conflict.”

Instead, he proposed that Israel take control of Area C of the West Bank, where Israel has full civilian and security control, and that Jordan take responsibility for Area A (which is officially under complete Palestinian Authority control) and B (which is under Palestinian administrative and Israeli security control) in line with the never-adopted 1987 London Agreement.

“We will take responsibility, especially for Area C, and [the Jordanians] more for A and B. And we will coordinate all our activities and efforts. I think it’s possible to manage in this way,” he said.

Politicizing the war

Asked to elaborate on his assertion that Netanyahu lacks a coherent strategy, Liberman maintained that the prime minister is “only” making decisions based on political considerations, citing his handling of floundering negotiations for a hostage deal.

Netanyahu appointed Israeli negotiators to seek a deal, but “every day we saw off-record claims that they’re not qualified and they don’t know how to conduct these negotiations,” he said. “It’s impossible. If you’re not satisfied with their [work], try to replace them.”

Netanyahu’s politicization of security matters was also evident in Tuesday’s last-minute cancellation of a planned trip to Washington by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Liberman contended.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi (center), IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar (right), and other officers are seen at the IAF’s underground command room amid a strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, September 27, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Netanyahu is primarily concerned with “his status and his ego,” he said. “His ego is above our national security interests.”

He argued that the prime minister is actively trying to force Gallant to resign so he can be replaced with someone like Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who can serve as a “puppet within the Defense Ministry.”

Relations between Gallant and Netanyahu have been tense ever since Netanyahu announced he was firing the minister in March 2023 over his criticism of the coalition’s judicial overhaul efforts, a move which he reversed under intense public pressure. The prime minister once again planned to fire the minister weeks ago, according to widespread reports, over repeated disagreements on key war matters, but the move was shelved as the conflict against Hezbollah in the north kicked into high gear.

Liberman argued that while Gallant is also “responsible for everything that happened on October 7,” he should not resign in the middle of a war.

“I think that to submit his resignation doesn’t make sense because the [one] who [is] really responsible for the wrong conception, the one who really foiled every effort to eliminate…the commanders of the Hamas gangs was Netanyahu. He created this policy of accommodating Hamas” in the years prior to October 7, he said.

Political partners

Last week, Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope rejoined the coalition, leaving Yisrael Beytenu the sole right-wing opposition party.

A longtime vocal critic of Netanyahu, Sa’ar had previously said that he was open to making concessions in order to establish a right-wing bloc in opposition to the current government.

Left to right: New Hope party head Gideon Sa’ar, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman meet on May 29, 2024. (Yair Lapid’s office)

Dismissing Sa’ar’s defection from the opposition as largely irrelevant, Liberman said the nationalist lawmaker had been holding talks with both him and Netanyahu simultaneously.

Liberman said he had insisted in those talks that if the two were to merge their parties, Sa’ar would have to fully integrate his party into Yisrael Beytenu for at least two election cycles so they would constitute “one party, one movement.”

But Sa’ar “used the conversations only as leverage” with Netanyahu, Liberman said.

Another potential partner for Liberman is former prime minister Naftali Bennett of the now-defunct Yamina party. Bennett took a break from politics after the fall of his government with Yair Lapid in 2022, but is now eyeing a return.

Liberman has met with Bennett to discuss potential cooperation. He said that the two still “speak from time to time” but that no final decisions have yet been made.

“For me, the main issue is to replace this government,” he said. To replace this government, we need more seats. If we see in the polls that running together will bring more seats, we will run together. If we see that separately [we can] bring more seats, we will run separately.”

Yisrael Beytenu party chief Avigdor Liberman meets former prime minister Naftali Bennett in Tel Aviv, July 17, 2024. (Yisrael Beytenu via X)

The true right-wing

Asked if there were any circumstances under which he would join the current government — perhaps in order to minimize the influence of far-right parties Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism — Liberman answered in the negative.

Liberman claimed Netanyahu’s government is engaged in “a real destruction of our society, of our values,” and that he would have little ability to impact policy from within, because Netanyahu’s “first commitment is to the Haredim, to Orthodox parties.”

“We have completely different visions on security, on economy, on everything,” he explained, saying he would rather sit with centrist and left-wing parties like Yesh Atid and the Labor-Meretz merger, The Democrats, than with Netanyahu’s far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners.

In fact, he continued, describing Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir and Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich as right-wing was a misnomer, as they do not represent the traditional Israeli right as formulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose Revisionist Zionist followers established the modern-day Likud party.

“I believe in the vision of Jabotinsky. It was liberal, it was secular, tough, right-wing, very educated, intellectual,” he said. “I think that we’re the only really right-wing party in Israel politics,” rather than a “messianic” faction.

“Today, you look at Likud, their coalition with [Haredi parties] Shas and UTJ, they’re completely in the hands of most radical Orthodox parties in Israel.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Shas party chair Aryeh Deri attend a meeting on the planned state budget vote, at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on May 23, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Bullish on elections

Addressing reporters in the Knesset over the summer, Liberman predicted that Netanyahu would dissolve the Knesset and call fresh elections in November. He has argued that Netanyahu would have trouble passing a 2025 state budget and that holding elections prior to the end of the year could serve to postpone the prime minister’s pending testimony in his corruption trial.

Despite the coalition bolstering its majority last week with Sa’ar, Liberman continues to believe elections are coming not long after the US presidential election.

“I don’t see the coalition supporting this budget,” he said. “At the end of the day, my feeling is that he will dissolve this Knesset, and he will move for new elections.”

And while the next election is “completely unpredictable,” he is optimistic that the opposition will be able to garner 62 or 63 seats out of 120 in the Knesset and form a new government.

“It’s possible,” he said.

Times of Israel staff and JTA contributed to this report.

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