.
Liberman: Our obligation to the coalition is over
(JPost) – Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman said that his party was no longer obligated to the coalition, as heads of opposition parties called for early elections.
Yisrael Beytenu did all it could to keep the coalition together as long as possible, Liberman said, adding that while the original date (September 2013) for an election would be best, his party “won’t be held hostage.”
However, Liberman said all talk about elections must wait until after May 9, when Yisrael Beytenu’s alternative to the “Tal Law,” which calls for most haredim and Arabs to enlist in the IDF or participate in national service programs, will be brought to a vote in the Knesset.
Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz called for his party to prepare for a vote on October 16, the earliest possible date for elections after the High Holy Days and Succot. “This government’s days are numbered,” Mofaz warned on his Facebook page. “[Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu has failed in his job, and the time has come to bring hope back to Israel.”
Mofaz wrote that Netanyahu must start discussing elections openly and reach an agreement with other parties on the date. If he does not do so, Kadima will propose a bill to dissolve the Knesset as soon as next week. When elections come, the Kadima leader wrote, the citizens of Israel will choose between “continued apathy and extremism from the current government, and hope.”
Other opposition party leaders were not waiting for answers from Netanyahu, as Labor leader Shelly Yacimovich and Meretz head Zehava Gal-On both proposed bills to dissolve the Knesset.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
