Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launches a diatribe against Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman who he blames for “dragging the country to unnecessary elections.”

Claiming that he won the last election, despite only receiving 35 seats — the same as Blue and White — and failing to form a coalition, he said he will win the next too.

“The public in Israel made a clear decision. It decided that I will be prime minister, that the Likud will lead the government, a right-wing government. The public voted for me to lead the state of Israel. Many of the parties said they will support Netanyahu… Liberman said he would support me as prime minister but he had no intention from the first moment to do what he said he would do,” Netanyahu tells journalists immediately after the vote to dissolve the Knesset and set new elections for September 17.

“All of the requests and demands of Yisrael Beytenu were repeatedly rejected. I presented a proposal. He rejected it. He wanted, in the most clear way, to bring down the government. He did it to scrape a few more seats which he thinks he can get. For the second time he has dragged the country to unnecessary elections due to his own political ego,” he continues. “Avigdor Liberman is now part of the left. He brings down right-wing governments. Don’t believe him again. I will tell you about it tomorrow. Maybe I will tell you some things you don’t know.”

Netanyahu says that the Likud “will run a sharp and clear election campaign, and we will win.”