On Jan. 8, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak posted a photo of a massive billboard from a previous Israeli election campaign showing a beaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing alongside a broadly smiling US President Donald Trump. Next to the photo Barak tweeted, “The conmen’s league. Political Siamese twins. Both narcissists, both claiming to have been framed, both serial liars contemptuous of their followers, inciting against the legal system. Both fraudsters insanely self-centered and willing to assassinate democracy. The Americans have already disposed of theirs, at a heavy cost. It is now our turn.”
In a Haaretz article run the same day, Barak urged President Reuven Rivlin to declare that Netanyahu cannot serve as prime minister given his indictment and ongoing trial on a charge of bribery, even though the law does not forbid him from running for office. Barak said the president must make the pronouncement before the Feb. 4 deadline for submitting the parties’ candidate lists for the March 23 elections “so that those compiling the lists take it into account and citizens are aware of it before they head for the ballot box.”
