One may say that Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is crass, radical and cynical, but one absolutely cannot accuse him of stupidity, naivete or negligence. The announcement condemning the president of the United States that Liberman demanded his ministry's spokesman (and not, as is customary, his own media adviser) issue on Aug. 5 was no slip of the tongue. A seasoned politician like Liberman surely knew that the mere mention of the Munich Agreement with Hitler would stir the media out of its weekend doldrums. And indeed, Munich did the job. The defense minister as well as the prime minister then apologized for the style, but not for the message.
The half-hearted apologies provided them an opportunity to reiterate their message: that the agreement signed with Iran a year ago is not worth the paper it’s written on. A clarification issued by the Defense Ministry read, “Israel remains deeply concerned by the fact that even after the agreement with Iran, the Iranian leadership continues to declare that its central goal is the destruction of the State of Israel and continues to threaten Israel’s existence with words and deeds.”
