PM to FM: 'It was a mistake'

Netanyahu and Lieberman meet to discuss Turkish FM meeting.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, HERB KEINON
Lieberman 311 AP (photo credit: AP)
Lieberman 311 AP
(photo credit: AP)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday, after Netanyahu failed to tell Lieberman about an effort to repair relations with Turkey.
"A decision like this must be made logically, in cooperation with all of the professional elements," Lieberman told Netanyahu. The foreign minister reportedly also said that it would damage Israel's international standing to apologize to Turkey or to pay those who were injured on the Mavi Marmara.
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Netanyahu and Lieberman reportedly said that the incident was a mistake, and that they would work in cooperation from now on.
Lieberman only learned about a meeting in Brussels between Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu from Channel 2 news on Wednesday night. Netanyahu tried to reach Lieberman following the report, but the foreign minister has refused to take his calls.
Netanyahu’s spokesman Nir Hefetz told Lieberman in a previously scheduled meeting on Thursday that leaving him out of the loop had been a simple mistake and not a deliberate attempt to keep him in the dark, but Lieberman did not accept the explanation.
Sources close to the foreign minister vowed revenge saying that Lieberman had realized that whoever pressured Netanyahu hardest and last tended to convince him, and that from now on, he intended to be the one applying that final, persuasive pressure.
Israel Beiteinu will remain in the coalition, but Lieberman’s associates said it would no longer serve Netanyahu blindly.
“There are no thoughts about resigning, because we don’t want to give that joy to anyone,” Lieberman told Israel Radio. “It is a matter of what political culture we want to have in Israel, do we have good governance, and whether basic loyalty is respected. We must clarify all of this to the fullest, because it cannot go on this way.”