According to Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, Israel needs the US for survival – and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has single-handedly ruined that relationship.
Speaking at the Israel Bar Association conference in Eilat on Tuesday, Livni said Israel is weak and isolated without US support, something it is unlikely to receive due to Netanyahu’s decisions, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Livni told her audience that Netanyahu “committed the original sin of intervening in American domestic politics and ruined relations with US” when he addressed Congress in March against US President Barack Obama’s wishes.
As a former foreign minister, Livni dismissed those who downplay the significance of US-Israel tensions. “Without support from the US, we are weak and isolated. Without US support, we cannot fight as long in war, nor achieve our aims so that the postwar situation will be better.”
She claimed it was not enough to be a great military force, but that Israel needed to also be strong diplomatically. “There are those who wrongly think that if you talk tough, Israel will be strong. They are wrong.”
Referring to Netanyahu’s election statement, later retracted, that “the right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are going en masse to the polls. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them on buses,” Livni said, “The world cannot trust the prime minister” after making such a comment.
“On one day, Netanyahu attacked Arabs voting, then backtracked. What should the world believe?”
