JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak compared the government of his successor Benjamin Netanyahu to that of Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
“The moral collapse of Netanyahu has produced laws whose only purpose is to help the government escape the corruption, bribery and breach of trust affairs it is suspected in,” Barak said Sunday night at a speech in Tel Aviv.
“It’s an expression of moral degradation that is not working for the good of citizens but for submission to a seemingly corrupt leader. This is reminiscent of Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu more than a model society or a light unto the nations.”
Ceausescu and his wife were executed following the overthrow of the communist regime in 1989.
There has been frequent suggestions that Barak, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2001, would like to return to the political area. He has frequently called on Netanyahu to resign over the corruption investigation against him.
“Behind a facade of babble, fake news and spin, they are hiding their apathy and indifference to all of you, their focus on their survival, on themselves and the outrageous benefits given to a handful of extremists, those who can pressure them and their associates,” he also said, according to Haaretz.
Barak’s suggestion that Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, would suffer the same fate as the Ceausescus drew outrage from the Likud party, which said in a tweet said that each day Barak emerges as more “eccentric and delusional.”
“His words against Prime Minister Netanyahu are incitement to violence,” the tweet said. “Barak has lost it.”
Barak’s speech was broadcast live on Facebook .
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