From the Liveblog of
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Former PM Barak: World ‘doesn’t believe one word’ Netanyahu says
Former prime minister Ehud Barak lashes out Thursday against the Netanyahu government.
He doesn’t hold back in his criticism.
“A fanatical nucleus has taken over Likud, manipulating their primary process to take over its leadership from anyone for whom democracy was important,” Barak says at the Herzliya Conference. “This is not the Likud of Jabotinsky and Begin,” he adds, referring to the iconic ideological and political founders of the Israeli center-right.
Netanyahu “bears responsibility” for his government’s “hijacking” by the far-right, he rails.
The world “doesn’t believe one word that comes out of Netanyahu’s mouth,” he says.
“Our closest supporters fear that Israel intends to continue to rule the territories forever, that Israel isn’t interested in the two-state solution, that Israel is waiting for the world to get used to this reality and that terror and conflict will distract [the world from the conflict], that Israel will accept autonomy [for Palestinians] with limited rights, but not a state, that Israel will continue discreetly with construction of settlements.”
The world may be right, Barak suggests, and warns that this “slippery slope to a one-state solution” is “the only truly existential threat that faces the Zionist project.”
