Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Tonight (Monday) gave an interview to Yonit Levy on News 12. This is an unusual event, since, as is well known, Netanyahu does not often give interviews to the Israeli media, except for Channel 20, which is associated with the right side of the political map. During the interview, Netanyahu He admitted that he did talk to prosecution witness Arnon Milchen after the indictment was filed, But claimed that the talks did not deal with the trial at all.
Netanyahu also referred to the controversial surplus agreement he signed with his party Itamar Ben Gvir And promised: “He will not be a minister,” the new US president said Joe Biden He has not yet called (“he will call, the relationship is solid”) and even sent a message to the judges in his files, claiming: “The prosecution against me wants to intervene in the election, very much hopes the judges will not succumb to pressure.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the opening of the Corona Cabinet meeting (Credit: None)
Let’s talk about politics. Rotation not on the table. If Bennett offers a rotation, will he not go?
“There is an opportunity to form a real right-wing government under my leadership, we will win more than 61. Let’s see who needs it, but look.Do not return to rotation. Neither rotation nor mutation. I think the citizens of Israel will make sure that there is no rotation because I see the real opportunity to form a right-wing government under my leadership. It will not be because in the end these elections are a choice between me and Lapid. That is why there will be no rotation. “
Will Ben Gvir be a minister in the government?
“He will not, He is not qualified to serve as a kosher in my eyes. I guess there will be lines he will not agree to. But I decide. He will not be in government but in coalition. He can want a lot of things but he will not be on the Judicial Appointments Committee. He will not be at 61, we will achieve more. “
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You promoted this party, you engineered the combination of Noam and Smutrich, you signed a surplus agreement. Is this legitimate in your eyes?
“Certainly, do not want to lose votes. You received an answer as to why Ben Gvir will not be chairman of a committee, because of his past statements. Ben Gvir’s positions are his positions, not my positions. “
Netanyahu went on to say: “I do not back down from what I said about the Arab parties. I will not lean on anyone who opposes Zionism. In any way. I will not do that and I compete with Mansour Abbas for the votes, he is my opponent. I turn to the Arab citizens, I went to the beach In Caesarea and people called me Abu Yair, I tell them: What do you have to go to these parties? Just mediators with false, extreme promises. I compete with Abbas, who by the way went with Lapid. Abbas is not my partner and I will not lean on him, I will take the votes from him“.
If you do not have 61, will you lead us to election number 5?
“I will have 61 for sure. There will be a change and there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, our constituents come together and understand that it is between me and Lapid. I will say this with unabashed modesty, What I am able to do in one hour, a rival torch, will not be able to do for the rest of his life“.
I want to ask about Gideon Saar, he is more right-wing than you – so why are you constantly talking about a right-wing government?
“He linked his fate with Lapid and he would be a minister with Lapid if he had passed. He sat in the left-wing government led by Lapid. This time I will have 61, this is the opportunity there is this time.”
Why is Biden not calling?
“He will call. I will tell you what it means to me – we have had a solid relationship for 40 years. We know each other and there are many agreements between us but there are also disagreements on Iran and the Palestinians.”
Is it because of all the last things that have happened that the Americans are taking a distance?
“I checked hundreds of members of Congress and senators and checked, 50-50, but my position is not Republican or democratic – the question of policy, whoever supports our policy I am with. Whoever supports Iran – I am against him. “.
You are talking about a unifying Netanyahu. Your son Yair who will celebrate 30 writes very controversial things on his Twitter account. Why is it not something you can stop?
“Do you have children? Do you control them? It’s not in my control. He is an independent person, with opinions. I really like and appreciate him, but sometimes he is too sharp and sometimes exaggerates, or at least not to my approach. He is hurt that his mother and father are harmed. So I understand his reaction but I do not share it. That is the real situation. “
Is there a possibility that she will run for president?
“Not interested in that.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pleaded guilty at a court hearing. Photo: Contact
Netanyahu: “Prosecution against me wants to intervene in elections”
The interview later moved on to deal with the prime minister’s trial, which resumed last week. Netanyahu took the stage to convey an implicit message to his judges: “The prosecution wants to intervene in the election. I very much hope that the judges will not succumb to this pressure.” As stated, Netanyahu even admitted for the first time that he spoke with prosecution witness Milchen after the indictment was filed:
Did you talk to prosecution witness Arnon Milchen after the indictment was filed?
“Yes. Once I congratulated him, I congratulated him on … are you allowed to talk – what did I say? I told him Happy holiday, once or twice, I do not remember.”
Could this be construed as an attempt to convey a message forever in the shadow of the trial?
“What all of a sudden? Nothing, no message and no plaster. It’s spin of the prosecution, they have no files, everything collapses for them, all this joke of bribery, so they have to find some way now – Happy holiday to Milchen?”
In the past, the Marciano Foundation has asked whether it will enact a law that will prevent you from being prosecuted. In the spirit of these days I want to ask if you will promote French law or any move that will prevent your trial?
“There will be no need for it, this trial is conducted as you see it, and as it is conducted you see how much it is tailor-made and hallucinatory. Extortion, inventing an offense, opening investigations against the Prime Minister without the approval of the Spokesman in violation of the Basic Law! They are being carried out, they are crumbling for them. “
You wrote that you would ask for immunity.
“My lawyers raised it as a possibility, I refused. I’m not looking for a plea deal“I think after people claim their delusional things – I stand by them because I know it’s becoming clear that there is nothing.”
You know these charges can lead to jail time.
Netanyahu: The State Attorney’s Office is currently trying to pressure the judges to move to the pre-election evidentiary stage so that there will be serious interference in the election and to advance their provocative moves. But what, it’s against all the rules, it’s against the procedure set by none other than a judge – Supreme Court President Grunis, the mega – case procedure, which he says the minimum time that must elapse between the preliminary time until the opening of the evidentiary phase is a minimum of 3 months. The prosecution wants to intervene in the election, They always want to bring the indictment every time before the election. I very much hope that the judges will not succumb to this pressure, but if so, it will be interpreted as blatant intervention. I will win anyway. “
Do you expect justice from these judges?
“I do not express my opinion on the judges. Terrible things are being revealed, the cases are crumbling. There are spins of the prosecution, everything is collapsing for them, this joke of bribery.”
Is the entire justice system rotten?
“I was talking about the prosecution, who said those things? Rivlin who called them a gang? Hila Gerstel who said everything was rotten? Mandelblit? I said that? What do you want?”
Ganz on the opening of the economy: “Continuing the inbound-vaccination outline” (Photo: Elad Malka)
“Negotiating with Pfizer and Modern Heads on the Establishment of Two Factories in Israel”
Let’s talk about the corona. Will there be another closure?
“We are with a huge line, I came from the cabinet that approved the green passport program that opens the Israeli economy to the vaccinated. Those who have not been vaccinated will not be able to. I want to keep those who are vaccinated. What will determine if there is another closure is people who have not been vaccinated. “For the hospitals, they are blocking the hospitals for others. Therefore, what I state is that a supreme national effort must be made alongside the gradual opening. I call for vaccination for all of us.”
Let’s talk about crisis management. Elrai and Ash and others spoke about political considerations behind the decisions, for example in front of the ultra-Orthodox public.
“I do not accept the discount in the first place but I would not separate the ultra-Orthodox public, the attempt to try them and divide them incorrectly. They are going to come out first, we will be the first in the world thanks to vaccines and health care. I want us all ultra-Orthodox, secular, left, right.” .
When the protesters in Balfour demonstrated you said it was anarchy. Why should a prime minister talk to a rabbi’s nephew? Is there another sector that receives such donations from the PM?
“The two major sectors of the morbidity are over and it has changed at least among the ultra-Orthodox, and the ultra-Orthodox and Arab society, I go to both and ask to be vaccinated.”
McNiewski did not ask to be vaccinated, you talked to him about Talmud Torah. It is a legitimate question to ask how you explain it.
There are anomalies in all sorts of places and even among the ultra-Orthodox this is a trend. Most of the ultra-Orthodox public is very disciplined and almost all rabbis have called for vaccination and we are seeing the infection rate go down. In the Arab sector there are violations, even in the secular there are violations. The virus attacks a crowd and it hurts everyone. I call on everyone to abide by the rules and I think we are getting out of this and the world is lingering. The Bloomberg Index said that it would take Israel two months to get out of it in two years. I believe that if the citizens of Israel are disciplined and we take the steps gradually according to the metrics we have met and 750,000 people come to get vaccinated – this is not just the last closure, but we will get out of the corona once and for all. “
“I want to say one more thing, we will not just get out of the corona first, thanks to the green passport – me Negotiates with Pfizer and Moderna heads on tens of thousands of additional vaccines and on the establishment of two factories in Israel. “One that will fill the small falcons of modernity and with Pfizer go to establish research and development and production here for the next viruses.”
Ganz wanted a closure two days earlier, but the quarrels were also within the Likud. Why are only blue and white to blame?
“The main thing was to get into closures on time and not too late And the cry to open raised the morbidity to thousands. This is a result. I’m talking about a result, if the people maliciously did it? No. But one can learn from the lesson that if we act responsibly we get out of it hugely, not only healthily but also financially. We have a fantastic economic plan. “
Continuing the claim that he prevented the transfer of a state budget, Netanyahu said: “Checking the facts about you. First of all, there is a budget, it is annual. It was at the beginning of the corona when its scope was unclear. We transferred a state budget, you asked me a question and I am allowed to answer. This is our budget for 2021, and the second thing there is Corona box grants – NIS 110 billion that we have spent so far. A package of NIS 15 billion that I want to transfer tomorrow. I bring this thing to the citizens of Israel and they are crying out for it. “
Why did it take a year to do tests at Ben Gurion Airport?
“Everything you said is not true, it did not take a year but days after the first eruption to close the sky and I was the first to do it in the world.”
Checking facts, America remained open.
“From May or April to August there were very severe restrictions on flights. I am doing something that no one has done yet and I have closed the borders of Israel almost hermetically, subject to the Exceptions Committee. No one is doing it! No one is landing!”
Now no one lands. Sharon Elrai was sitting here. You made Dubai red.
“You said it took a week since the British mutation broke out, it took hours. We heard Johnson …”
You said ‘we do not know about this thing’.
“When the World Health Organization announced that there was a global problem, I called the government by phone, from the recovery room next to the injection room. Stop tilting things. The main thing we see is that we lead the world in vaccines and we will be the first to emerge from the corona.
Netanyahu added: “The immediate thing to do is that we have an economic package, there is no such thing as officials telling me ‘election economics’, they will immediately say that there is ‘election medicine’ about vaccines. Business people whose businesses are collapsing are waiting for this NIS 15 billion. “I come to all the meetings and deal with it, we need to pass the economic plan immediately. There can be no officials and advisers to prevent it.”
Talking about officials is problematic.
“There are wonderful senior officials in the Ministry of Health, one of the best in the world. His job is to advise, we are the decision makers.”
Benjamin Netanyahu on Channel 20. Photo: Channel 20
The Yesh Atid party stated in response to Netanyahu: “The 5,388 dead from the corona are evidence of Netanyahu’s failure to manage the corona crisis. A failure due to Ben Gurion Airport’s failure and surrender to extortion in enforcement. The upcoming elections are between a sane and liberal government of Yesh Atid and a government of Litzman and Ben Gvir. “
The “black flags” responded: “A criminal defendant conducts despicable election propaganda in prime time. There is no public norm and no law that will not be trampled upon to escape the terror of Israel. The citizens of Israel deserve a prime minister who has the good of the citizens before his eyes. The protest will continue.”