Liberman: Netanyahu pardon in exchange for ‘honorable retirement’

Liberman said that Netanyahu should accept a proposal for a pardon in exchange for retirement.

By World Israel News Staff

In an interview with Ynet on Thursday, Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman said that he would never want to see a prime minister in prison and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should accept a proposal for a pardon in exchange for retirement.

“No immunity, pardon in exchange for honorable retirement,” he said.

Liberman also said that everyone, even members of Netanyahu’s own party, would support such a proposal.

“He has become a burden,” he said. “Everyone is prepared to give him an opportunity to retire in dignity. If this initiative [pardon in exchange for retirement] was to be tabled in the Knesset, I have no doubt everyone would be in agreement.”

Channel 12 news reported on Nov. 5 that the proposal for Netanyahu’s retirement in exchange for a pardon was given to President Reuven Rivlin by unnamed political leaders. But, according to The Jerusalem Post, Rivlin has not extended the offer to Netanyahu.

Despite his comments, many believe that Liberman has a personal vendetta to rid the country of Netanyahu.

On Nov.25, Liberman said that granting Netanyahu immunity would harm the public’s trust and the only just way to handle the situation is to let the courts decide his fate.

“I do wish that at the end of the process the prime minister will be cleared… but the only place to get to the bottom of it is the court,” and that is “the only thing that would be accepted by all citizens,”  Liberman said at the time.

Liberman has been claiming for awhile that he has done everything in his power by calling for a unity government to prevent a third election

“Unfortunately, both of them [Netanyahu and rival Gantz] made a strategic decision not to go with unity, so the two parties are responsible for another election campaign. On election night, we promised that we’d turn over every stone, that we’d try to exhaust every option and suggest every imaginable initiative. We did this,” he said last week. “We come with clean hands” to the electorate.