TEL AVIV – Conservative radio host and bestselling author Mark Levin on Thursday declared that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents in Israel were attempting to usurp democracy using a law concocted to keep him from forming a government.
Levin, who interviewed Netanyahu shortly before the election, said that a trifecta comprised of Israel’s Left, its Arab parties, and Yisrael Beitenu party leader-cum-kingmaker Avigdor Liberman “usurped the will of the Israeli people” in a concerted effort to destroy Netanyahu, whom he called the “greatest prime minister in Israel’s history.”
Levin’s remarks, which he posted to Facebook, came in the wake of Liberman’s announcement that he had added his voice to the chorus of support for the opposition Blue and White party’s proposed legislation to unseat Netanyahu by declaring that a prime minister who faced criminal indictment should be barred from office.
Netanyahu will soon go on trial for corruption, though he and his supporters deny there is any merit to the charges.
Levin, noting that Netanyahu “has delivered more foreign and economic policy successes than ever imagined” to Israel, compared the dysfunction of the country’s multi-party system to the fall of the Roman Empire, in which Caesar was assassinated from enemies within the Roman Senate.
“The enemies from within [Israel] empower the enemies from outside who are looking in. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc., are plotting, planning, and salivating. They, too, want Netanyahu’s removal and celebrate his domestic enemies weakening Israel,” Levin conjectured.
Netanyahu on Thursday also drew comparisons with Iran, charging his rival Gantz with acting worse than Iranian Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
“In Iran, they disqualify candidates before their elections, but here Gantz is doing it after an election despite the results,” Netanyahu said.
He said the proposed legislation was an “effort to divide the nation.”
Liberman initially rejected Blue and White head Benny Gantz’s attempts to introduce the legislation after the September national election, when the parties could not agree on a governing coalition.
His about-face on Thursday means a 62-seat opposition majority have expressed support for the move.
Liberman also said he would back term limits for the premiership.
“At the faction meeting that just ended, it was decided to move forward with the promotion of two laws,” his secular, right-wing party said in a statement. “The first law [will] limit the tenure of a prime minister to two terms. The second law [will] prevent an MK facing indictment from forming a government.”
Levin on Thursday called the charges “bogus and politically motivated.”
Senior MKs from Blue and White, Labor-Gesher-Meretz and the Arab-majority Joint List expressed their support for the law.
In his post, Levin accused the latter of “oppos[ing] the existence of the state of Israel and includ[ing] Islamists, Arab nationalists, and communists.”
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