Liberman to ‘Post’ – I hope Netanyahu is acquitted

Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman said that he hopes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be acquitted of all corruption charges.

“I wish only really good results for Netanyahu, because he is our prime minister,” Liberman said in an interview Thursday at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference. “Our personal relations – in the past, now, the future – are not so important. For our state, it is important we will see this finished.”

Liberman made his comments hours before Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit announced his intentions to indict the prime minister. At 6:30 p.m. Israel time, Mandelblit announced his final decision: Netanyahu will be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Liberman said he does not believe that Netanyahu’s political career should be tied to his legal case.

“You should not put them together,” he said. “If he will finish his career, I think I prefer it to be for political reasons and not for other reasons.

“It is for my concern for the people of Israel – for our state, for all our people; the best solution is a happy ending with Bibi’s criminal case,” he concluded.

Despite his sentiments that he hopes Netanyahu will be acquitted, Liberman said that he is not inclined to join a Netanyahu-led coalition so long as the Likud maintains its “fanatic, radical, religious coalition.”

He said that this is even the case unless – if on December 10, with 24 hours left to countdown before new elections – the ultra-Orthodox are willing to come toward him. He noted that if the haredim make steps toward him on issues like the draft bill, civil marriage, transportation on Shabbat, then “everything is open.”