JERUSALEM — The letter went to the attorney general this morning. In it, Avigdor Liberman asks Gali Baharav-Miara to open a criminal investigation of Benjamin Netanyahu — for treason.
For the past month, he says, Netanyahu has been leaning on the heads of the security establishment, urging steps that could produce a miscalculation with Iran — steps Liberman says are driven by fear of losing Tuesday’s election.
In his post on X, he called it “treason against the state, its security, and the IDF soldiers,” writing that Netanyahu’s attempt to drag Israel into war on the eve of elections, and his willingness to sacrifice IDF soldiers, came from fear of losing the vote.
No evidence accompanies the letter. No order is named in it; no document is cited. And a request is all it is. Nothing in it shows Baharav-Miara has opened an investigation, and Netanyahu faces no treason charge.
The accusation arrived on the last day of campaigning, in a race already inflamed by a Channel 12 report that Netanyahu had told the military to carry out an action officers worried could restart the fighting with Iran. His office called the report “fake news,” The Associated Press reported.
Defense Minister Israel Katz backed that denial on X. There was never any intention, he said, of attacking Iran before the vote, and talk of a rift between the political and military leadership was “completely baseless and false.” Israel would still hit back hard, he added, if Iran struck first.
Liberman leads Yisrael Beytenu and once held Katz’s job as defense minister. He signed the letter as a member of parliament and party chairman. Tuesday’s vote is Israel’s first since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
Have something to promote?
Bring your business, services or event to our readers.
