Liberman raps Smotrich for touting return to Torah law, quarrels with Gabbay

Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman on Monday berated MK Bezalel Smotrich for saying he wants the Israeli justice system to adhere to religious Jewish law.

Smotrich drew ire for saying Israel should aspire to run itself as “in the days of King David” on Sunday night, adding that his Union of Right-Wing Parties “wants to restore the Torah justice system.”

Smotrich has demanded that he be named interim justice minister until the September 17 elections, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Ayelet Shaked from the post on Sunday. In the past few months, before coalition talks failed, he had been insisting that Netanyahu hand him the justice portfolio, although the premier is believed to favor Likud lawmaker Yariv Levin for the job.

“Listen to what Smotrich, a candidate for the justice minister post, has been saying,” Liberman told party members at a Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting. Smotrich is a hardline, pro-settlement MK.

“These are no longer comments coming from a delusional hilltop youth, but a statement of intent,” he said, referring to ultra-nationalists in the West Bank. “We will prevent that, we won’t lend those efforts a hand. Jewish law is an important and critical part of the Israeli justice system, but Israeli law cannot be Torah law.”

Liberman also took aim at Labor chairman Avi Gabbay, who in secret coalition negotiations last week reportedly had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu film a video promising never to cooperate again with Liberman.

The Knesset on Wednesday voted to disband and go to elections in September after Netanyahu failed to form a coalition. After failing to reel Liberman into the government, the prime minister met secretly with Labor’s Gabbay and made him an offer.

The Netanyahu-Gabbay deal ultimately failed, however, after news of the talks surfaced. Netanyahu also failed to persuade Liberman to join the coalition, leading to snap elections, now slated for September 17.

On Friday, Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu let Gabbay film him promising to never partner with Liberman, to assuage his fears the Likud head was only using him to pressure Liberman into joining the coalition.

“Avi Gabbay, as a public official, should have the courage to show the public everything he recorded at the Prime Minister’s Office,” Liberman said.

Gabbay fired back, tweeting that he agrees to publish the video, but only “in exchange for you revealing to the Israeli nation who and why paid three million dollars to your daughter, Michal, when she was only 21 years old.”

In a series of police investigations over two decades — which have yielded an attorney general recommendation for corruption charges but no indictment — Liberman has been suspected of maintaining ties with, and illegally continuing to benefit from, private companies he had founded as a private citizen, even when he was a public official, via a series of shell companies. In one case, Liberman’s daughter — now aged 24 and a multi-millionaire — was named CEO of a company.