Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is doubling down on his call for a “thorough investigation” into allegations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his personal attorney David Shimron may have faced a possible conflict of interest in the multi-billion shekel purchase of German submarines.
“I have seen, for three days already, efforts to… make the submarines affair disappear,” he says at the start of the weekly faction meeting. “It won’t work.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center right, shakes hands with Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, October 31, 2016. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)
Lapid says the submarines purchases came at the expense of other military equipment such as fortified APCs, saying “it’s the same budget.”
These military purchases must be “the cleanest” and “most transparent,” he says.
“You can’t tell us that ‘it’s okay, the prime minister didn’t know anything.’ If the prime minister didn’t know anything, it’s very much not okay,” he adds.
“This matter must be investigated. Why didn’t Shimron say anything to the prime minister? Why was it hidden from the cabinet and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee? How much money did he get?”
— Marissa Newman
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