Yulia Malinovsky: 'Netanyahu is an expired product, and Gantz lacks the experience to be PM'

Not only is Naftali Bennett dodging questions about government leadership the day after the elections; in Yisrael Beiteinu, they are preparing to demand the premiership for Avigdor Lieberman, even though Benny Gantz holds the largest number of mandates and a gap in the bloc.

In a conversation with MK Yulia Malinovsky of Yisrael Beiteinu on the "Game of Chairs" podcast, she explicitly stated that the person with experience is the one worthy of leading the next "government of change." "Today, Lieberman is the person with the most experience. He comes with proof that he has long-term vision and a vision different from the others. We saw this with his warnings regarding Gaza and with the fortification of the North. I say this: there is no substitute for experience for all those who think they can just come and—snap," she says, snapping her fingers.

Is that a criticism of Benny Gantz, who arrives without experience in the political system?

"You cannot enlist in the army, be a soldier, and immediately after that be Chief of Staff. It doesn't work like that. You have to go through a path. There is very, very strong talk also on the side of Knesset members from the current coalition; they predict that Lieberman will be Prime Minister. Avigdor Lieberman can, is capable of, and should be Prime Minister. But first of all, we will win the elections and make a turnaround here in the style of Begin in '77."

Malinovsky has been in the party ranks for a decade and is known for her sharp tongue; she also ruled that Prime Minister Netanyahu is "expired," in her words. "I just think Netanyahu is already expired. You know, you come to the supermarket, you see a Milky on the shelf, beautiful and nice on the outside. You look—it's expired. That's it, enough."

Cross-camp legislation

Returning to Malinovsky's ongoing work, even from the opposition benches, she managed to pass three significant laws in cooperation with the coalition—a law to deny benefits to terrorists, a law to stop UNRWA activity in Israel, and above all, the law to put Nukhba terrorists on trial. According to her, the fact that until today the issue of conducting Nukhba trials was promoted sluggishly was the fault of the government, which avoided criticism.

"It's not political and it's not coalition-based. If it were something political and coalition-based, it would go fast. They know how to create a crisis there. On this law, no one created a crisis. On the other hand, it's good, because it is completely clean of politics. Simcha and I 'killed ourselves' for the law, and at some stage, the Minister of Justice gathered for the event, and the Legal Advisor, and the Military Advocate General, all the forces you cannot imagine, in these days, that can even work together. The law passed with the support of 93 Knesset members with no opponents."

Meanwhile, according to her, the issue of budgeting also prevents the implementation of the law. "I don't feel from the government and the relevant ministers that they have an interest and concern to promote this with the required speed. I am a bit exposed to the material; the moment you see the indictments, it is at the level of horrors that it is impossible to describe what happened there, and I argue that it may not be for nothing that the government did not want this for three years, because these indictments are a commission of inquiry in every sense and meaning."

"The coalition? Not related to the Right"

Isn't Yisrael Beiteinu ideologically supposed to sit in a right-wing coalition?

"They are not Right. I worked with Edelstein excellently on the UNRWA laws. With Bismut—excellently. As a person, as an individual. With Ofir Katz, with Simcha Rothman. I worked with everyone. But the coalition as a whole does not do Right. I am pure Right of the old days. I am probably the Right of the Likud of the old days."

So what are you doing in the opposition with Yair Golan and Mansour Abbas?

"Because the coalition is not related to the Right; they are only related to the three 'K's: Power (Koach), Chair (Kise), and Honor (Kavod). As a bloc, not as a person. I am in favor of conscription for everyone. In favor of reforms in the judicial system, very much in favor. I am aiming for a broad, Zionist, liberal government, in which the first thing is a commission of inquiry, because it is simply inconceivable to me that this hasn't happened until now. The second thing is conscription for everyone and core studies."

Regarding the Arab public, she concluded: "The Arab public in the country needs to decide if they are Israelis or Palestinians. They cannot be both. I believe we will get more than sixty-one mandates without Arabs."