Liberman Calls Netanyahu ‘Scum’ for Alleged Smear Campaign

Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman launched a scathing attack on former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, calling him “scum” and saying he had no red lines in his thirst for power.

Liberman, who leads the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu Party, was asked to comment on allegations by a former activist in his party, who last week claimed he had offered to pay him $100,000 to kill a police superintendent. Liberman rejected the allegations and repeated his own claim that it was a smear campaign orchestrated by Netanyahu in the run-up to the elections.

Liberman asserted that sullying political opponents is a tactic of Netanyahu, describing him as “the scum of the human race, who has no red lines.”

“It is clear that he understands that all that stands between him and being in power is Avigdor Liberman,” he said, alluding to the fact that his Yisrael Beytenu Party has broken with the right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu.

But Liberman vowed that “nothing will help him, I will continue to stand [against him] and we will make sure that [his bloc] will continue to get 59 seats in the polls, because that is what is causing him hysteria.”

The Likud Party responded in a post that “Liberman, the national instigator, is under pressure” and accused him of behaving “like a gangster.”

“We hope he won’t offer anyone $100,000 to kill Netanyahu,” the party wrote and insisted that “Likud and former Prime Minister Netanyahu have no connection to the worrying claims that were published against him in recent days.”

Regarding the allegations of offering cash for killing the police officer, Liberman dismissed his accuser, Yossi Kamisa, as “a pathological liar, a pathological miser who is obsessed with money. If someone offered him $100,000 to kill the pope, first he would take the money and run. I don’t know if he would actually do anything, but he certainly would take the money.”

Liberman said he sent a letter Sunday to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara about the matter and would will file a formal complaint on Monday.

The letter, submitted on Liberman’s behalf by his attorneys, asked Baharav-Miara to immediately declare the claims unfounded, arguing that they were being made during an election campaign in an attempt to harm the Yisrael Beytenu Party.

“The fact that the man ‘remembered’ to make such serious allegations 20 years after they allegedly occurred and during an election campaign speaks for itself, and proves the degree of ‘reliability’ of the claims,” the letter said.

“Therefore your notification as stated above is required, immediately, in order not to give credence to such foolish and illegal attempts to cause harm,” it stated.

The letter also pointed to chronological errors in the claims that Kamisa published in a social media post about the alleged sought-for hit and in a media interview he gave afterward.

“Kamisa’s claims are delusional and unfounded,” the letter said, adding that a defamation complaint will be filed against him.

Baharav-Miara will discuss the claims made by Kamisa at a meeting later this week, Yediot reported. But according to legal experts, there is a very small chance she will order an investigation to be launched.

On Thursday, Kamisa made a series of allegations against Liberman on social media, including that he had made the supposed hit offer, and that he had operated a Yericho casino whose proceedings benefited terror organizations, as well as having secret business dealings in Congo.

He also claimed Liberman’s connections to former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein had helped him evade the law in various criminal cases in which he was probed throughout his years in politics.