Likud says ‘left has gone off rails’ after MP blames PM for terror

Likud officials lambasted former defense minister Amir Peretz on Saturday evening, saying the Israeli left “has gone off the rails,” after the Zionist Union MK said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for terror attacks occurring in Tel Aviv.

Peretz, speaking at a cultural event in Tel Aviv suburb Givatayim earlier in the day, said that “after 10 [non-consecutive] years in which Netanyahu has served as prime minister, we can point to him as the central figure responsible for terror attacks taking place in the center of Tel Aviv.”

The former minister said Netanyahu’s lack of diplomatic initiative was behind Israeli civilians’ continued lack of security.

“Bibi’s response to the attack in Sarona was that of a bureaucrat and not of a leader with vision,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “His government acts the same way over and over again and expects different results, instead of displaying courage and breaking the diplomatic deadlock.”

He said Netanyahu “is not pretending to be a far-right extremist, he really is one, and he has no intention of changing and reaching a compromise on the core issues of the conflict.

“The fact that he negotiated with [Zionist Union leader Isaac] Herzog one day and signed a deal with [Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor] Liberman on another proves that the only thing leading him is political survival.”

Likud quickly responded to Peretz’s accusations, staging an attack on the entire political left which it claimed had “gone off the rails, lost all touch with reality and adopted the talking point of the BDS movement.”

Likud said Israel had fought terrorism “since the day of its establishment.

“It is not Israeli settlement [in the West Bank] that is responsible for terrorism, it is not ‘the occupation’ that is responsible for terrorism, and it is not Israel’s defense policy that is responsible for terrorism. Terrorists are responsible for terrorism.”

Likud noted in its statement that “when terrorists speak of occupation, they mean Tel Aviv.”

The party blamed Palestinian incitement and “a desire to destroy Israel” for ongoing attacks, and vowed to continue to fight those elements “responsibly and with level-headedness.”

On Wednesday evening two Palestinian cousins carried out a shooting attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona open-air mall, killing four people and injuring six.

The gunmen, who were sitting at the Max Brenner restaurant in Sarona, opened fire on customers. The terrorists were pursued by police and arrested. An accomplice has also been arrested. The attack came after a relative lull in violence following a six-month wave of stabbings and shootings in Israel.

JTA contributed to this report.