Avigdor Lieberman on elections, black PR and national consensus

Leader of the Our Home Israel Party and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are counting on rationalism of voters and their understanding of the situation in the country. In an exclusive interview, he answered a series of questions on key topics raised today on the eve of the elections.
- The hottest topic of the last days is the investigation of a case of suspicion of corruption. You have already spoken on this subject several times, but in the press constantly new details pop up, the representatives of the police report regularly ...

- I do not want to repeat myself, to remind you that this is already the “sixth accident” before the elections. This is unprecedented for Israel. If we were looking for something similar in history, we would probably have found it in the USSR or in Tsarist Russia. At the beginning, it also seemed to me that some of our activists exaggerate comparing the “Lahav 433 case” with the “doctors case”. But now I do not think so.

I, unfortunately, can not tell everything. For example, about a man who was called as a witness for questioning with addiction only in order to put pressure on one of the detainees. It was clear to everyone that the witness is very sensitive to any kind of pressure, not the most resistant person. This interrogation ended with an attempt at suicide, a complete breakdown of the nervous system, a loss of the ability to function normally ...
A week after the case went into the open stage, the legal adviser to the government sends a letter to Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, in which she is forbidden to visit her office in the ministry, and this letter is published in the press, although it is known that she has been announcing the investigation did not appear there. Nothing but the creation of an atmosphere of pressure and pressure conditions, it can not be called.

- You have already noted that this is a joint “project” of the police and the press. Opinion remains the same?
- The press here plays an active role. Here is an example: a few days ago I read a very short message that Faina Kirshenbaum had “found” a rather large sum on the account. Unfortunately, many ordinary readers took this information as if the investigators found it unclear where it was unclear how much money. It was as if they were found in a toilet cistern or a cache under a tile ... But as a person with 17 experience who had endured countless interrogations for nothing, I was struck by the absence of a number of details in these notes. There were no "related details." For example, references to the fact that the report on that money was not submitted to the tax administration, or that taxes were not paid from this amount, or that this money was not indicated in the income and property declaration provided to the state controller by Knesset deputies every year.
What does this mean? Only that we are talking about absolutely legal means, declared and stored in the family account. That is, there is no violation at all. Silent in the media and that a significant part of this amount consists of funds from the sale of the 4-room apartment of Faina’s husband’s parents - they left it to him after 40 years of living in Israel. That is, the “laconic message” about the money found pursued only one goal - to create a distorted picture, infinitely far from reality. But this is obvious only for a man who has passed through a decade and a half of interrogations. And the public has the feeling that it is their “bloods” who were taken away and hid by the “corrupt”.

- That is, journalists either do not understand what they are talking about, but are they clinging to the “hot topic”, or are they just helping the investigators to inflate the case?
- I'll tell you a funny episode. Although no, rather sad. The other day I received a request from a journalist of a well-known economic publication, considered one of the best in Israel. He, apparently, also decided to take up the "investigation" against the background of all this hype. He asked about “Beiten Olami” - the World Movement “Our Home Israel”. In particular, he was interested in the role of Eliezer Cohen, Mikhail Nudelman and ... Yuri Stern. Yes, who died in 2007, Yura Stern. As well as a former Knesset member from the Kadima party, who left politics in 2009, Mikhail Nudelman, and Eliezer Cohen who left the NDI in 2006, It turns out that the journalist did not even bother to check the elementary facts. So rotten sensations are born.
I do not intend to react to everything that is written and “merged” daily in the media. When there are enough crazy stories, I will comment on everything at once.

- Let's move on to foreign policy. Recently, there are publications about your “left-wing”, about meeting with Mohammed Dahlan, about negotiations with the Saudis ...
- Yes, I saw disinformation being thrown by certain circles that allegedly during my trip to Paris at the end of last year I met in a certain luxurious hotel with Dahlan, one of the main oppositionists of the Abu Mazen regime in the Palestinian Authority. I am not going to comment, but I will note only one detail. The article by the well-known Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, who has very good sources of information in the Israeli secret services, stresses that representatives of MOSSAD also took part in the meetings that Lieberman held in Paris. And they obviously would not have participated in the meetings with Dahlan.
This is all part of the campaign black PR. I know who spreads it and why. So that the right voter would believe those who are fighting for the Likud party, the five current ministers and the deputy minister from which, in October 2004, voted for “itnatkut” (“disengagement”). And it was precisely these leaders who were against the destruction of the Hamas regime during Operation Enduring Rock. By the way, after the recent primaries in this party, all five took rather high places in the election list. All of these publications, all these hints of “isting” are empty words, designed to mislead the voter. This is an attempt to tarnish any initiative proposed as an alternative to the policy of inaction, because of which others are constantly behind Israel.

- The initiatives you are proposing are called “leftists” ...
- Labels - the easiest and cheapest way to divert attention from the essence. And here we are talking about stupid label and pure demagogy. The alternative that I propose is based on the understanding that it is pointless to negotiate with the Palestinians, since our conflict is with the Arab world and it should be resolved as a whole. Is it left-handed? Understanding that you need to solve the problem with the Arabs who are disloyal to the country living in Israel is leftism? Providing a Jewish majority in Israel - is it left-handed? What, then, is “right-wing”? Continuing the policy of inaction and ignoring what is happening in the region?

In recent weeks, I have clearly and thoroughly explained my position on key issues twice, speaking at the NDI Forum in Ariel and at the Shabbat Tarbut event in Kfar Saba. In particular, I spoke of the need for a broad national consensus. Both of these speeches are available - they can be read, and not rely on hints and publications of people seeking to ascribe something to me that I did not express, and what I do not believe. This concerns both foreign policy and issues that primarily interest Russian-speaking voters.
I note that, according to representatives of religious parties, they received clear and firm promises from Netanyahu and Bennett to repeal the law on universal conscription and that the topic of alleviating Giyur would be over. And, of course, to increase funding for yeshiva - its return to the level before the creation of the last government.

- Before the election, it is customary to report to the voters, to talk about the work done.
- Yes, there is such a tradition, and I periodically with interest learn how these or other politicians give themselves credit for what the NDI party did. Right now, the Prime Minister suddenly remembered the reform of the government system and began to talk about it actively. Let me remind you that the last law in this area, adopted by the Knesset, was carried out by the NDI. Thanks to him, there are fewer ministers, “ministers without a portfolio” have disappeared, the number of deputy ministers has decreased. We are not just fighting for the introduction of an analogue of the “Norwegian law”, but even announced that we will introduce it on our own, as part of our faction in the Knesset. I hope that people remember who was against this reform. If not, it's easy enough to check.
Or let's talk about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where with my arrival the concept of a multi-vector foreign policy I developed began to be implemented. I was often asked why these trips to Africa, to Lithuania, to the Republic of Srpska, to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only through the development of cooperation and the strengthening of bilateral relations between Israel and these countries did we ensure that the UN Security Council voted against granting the status of a full-fledged member of the United Nations to Palestinian autonomy.
Due to the multi-vector policy of the country of Africa, Eastern and Central Europe in September last year at the conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to adopt an anti-Israeli resolution proposed by the League of Arab States (LAS), demanding open access to our nuclear facilities. The five African states that I previously visited and concluded mutually beneficial agreements on cooperation in various fields, all the Balkan countries, the Baltic States, Moldova and Ukraine either voted against this resolution or abstained.
I can recall the entry of Israel into a number of prestigious international organizations, such as CERN - the European Center for Nuclear Research and WEOG - a regional group of European and other Western countries in the UN. I think that there is no need to explain what a major breakthrough this is for Israeli science and diplomacy.
The introduction of visa-free regimes with Russia and other post-Soviet countries: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, on the initiative of the NDI, led to a sharp increase in the number of tourists and an increase in income in this area. Generally, if I list all that we have achieved, the foundation for which reforms and advances have been laid, we will talk for a very long time, enough for a few interviews. This has already been said more than once. That's not the point. The bottom line is that we work for the benefit of both repatriates and all Israelis, the entire state. And we will continue to do it.

- Do you count on 16 mandates?
- I count on the voters to understand the situation, on their rationalism and desire to see Israel strong, and its government responsible. The fact that the constant "coincidences" of elections and scandalous cases that end in nothing, as well as delusional stories in the press will lead them to the obvious conclusion: a dirty game is being played against NDI. And they will not want to participate in it.

Interviewed by Alexander Kogan, IzRus.com