From the Liveblog of
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Liberman says he’s ‘not calm about Netanyahu’s mental state’ following PM’s ‘deep state’ claims
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 questions Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sanity over the premier’s claim that an alleged “deep state” within the Israeli government is working against him.
“I’m not calm about Netanyahu’s mental state,” the former Netanyahu ally tells Channel 13. “I’ve known him for years. Deep State? We have a deep fake prime minister,” Liberman adds, predicting that the prime minister will “crash” in the next election.
Netanyahu last week tweeted that “in America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will.”
Netanyahu also later published a campaign-like social media video expounding in Hebrew on the term, which he described as “the permanent bureaucracy that is barely replaced and sits deep in the Israeli government, and decides that it knows better than the voters.”
The X post and video came after police announced that they detained and questioned under caution two suspects as part of an ongoing investigation into whether thousands of dollars were funneled from Qatar to one or more of Netanyahu’s aides.
The Times of Israel Community.