During a meeting of his party’s Knesset faction today (Monday), Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman talked about the war and also addressed the northern front: “No-one will go back to the north if we don’t take our Hezbollah.”
He also addressed the southern front: “First, I want to tell the IDF soldiers presently fighting in the Gaza Strip: you have full backing from the entire People of Israel. Complete the mission and come home safe. I want to first of all address what is happening on the northern border and warn of that mistaken preconception, which unfortunately continues to guide people’s actions, especially on the northern border.”
“I hear from all over,” Liberman said, “that on the northern border, Nasrallah is trying to harass us out of solidarity with Hamas and due to the fighting in the south, and that he has no intention of entering the war. I oppose these statements. Those who focus on harming observation posts and IDF posts, proves that he is not sufficing with the role of ‘nuisance,’ but also has offensive intentions. We see those rockets and mortars which reach our posts and the cities of the north.”
Liberman: “We must not end the war without throwing Hezbollah beyond the Litani”
“We must not awaken,” stressed the Yisrael Beiteinu chairman, “to a heavy salvo of missiles flying towards Haifa and Tel Aviv, and we’re looking up, while a Radwan force is running towards our fences. I want to tell the war cabinet, that we must not end the war without throwing Hezbollah beyond the Litani. This simply cannot be. No-one will return to those settlements next to the fence if we don’t toss Hezbollah from there.”
"I toured the northern border last week and heard the residents. After everything we saw and experienced in the south, no-one will return to the north and it is therefore our job to ensure that they come back. We have a strong case – Resolution 1701 confirmed unanimously by all the powers in the Security Council. In accordance with that decision, all the terrorists of Hezbollah need to be beyond the fence. The problem is that when you constantly talk in terms of ‘containment,’ the moment you contain even one terrorist on the Litani, in the end you get dozens of terrorists along the fence.”
Liberman ended by saying “I also have many questions regarding the effort we’ve heard which the Defense Minister wanted to lead recently, and which Gantz and the two observers opposed for some reason. This is again a serious error and part of that defeatist approach. Regarding the document published this morning: that document was delivered to the Prime Minister by me. Over a year and a half, I fought to apply its principles. After the cabinet meeting of November 13, where I demanded energetic action against Hamas and they did precisely the opposite, the next day I submitted a letter of resignation.”
