Liberman Dumps Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon from Knesset List

Avigdor Liberman's campaign to unload the "stars" of his party, Israel Beiteinu, continues full blast into Tuesday, the day of submitting all the lists of nominees to the Knesset, Israel's Channel 2 News reported.

The list of Liberman's party is shared this election with Netanyahu's Likud.

After the untimely "retirement" of Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (accused of drunkenness, but also one of the most effective Tourism ministers Israel has ever had), and MK Anastasia Michaeli (spilled a glass of water on an Arab MK), Israel Beiteinu's powerful chairman on Tuesday dropped his own deputy at the Foreign Ministry, the talented and very charismatic Danny Ayalon.

The Deputy Foreign Minister, picked for seventh place on the party list in the previous Knesset, will be remembered, among other things, for the embarrassing incident with the Turkish ambassador, whom Ayalon forced to sit in front of the cameras on a humiliatingly low chair. It did not help Israel's already toxic relationship with Turkey. But U.S. Jews will remember Ayalon's brilliant stint as co-chairman of the North American aliyah organization Nefesh B'Nefesh.

On the other hand, Liberman is also intending to place the MK Faina Kirschenbaum in seventh place on the list, a 3-spot upgrade from her tenth place in the 2009 Knesset elections.