Fears for peace as gov’t sets harsh tone in Israel
Agence France-Presse
Israel's new government has set a hawkish tone in its first days in office, with statements by its top diplomat setting off warnings that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet risked burying the troubled peace talks.A day after he sparked criticism by saying Israel was not bound by a U.S.-backed 2007 agreement to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday refused any withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria.
"There is no cabinet resolution regarding negotiations with Syria, and we have already said that we will not agree to withdraw from the Golan Heights," Lieberman told Haaretz daily.
The Golan is a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981, which Damascus wants back as part of any peace treaty.
Opposition of Israelis
Opposition members of parliament in Israel were as harsh in their criticism of a man whom critics have branded a "racist" and "fascist" for his regular diatribes against Israeli Arabs. Tzipi Livni, from whom Lieberman took over the foreign ministry, said that with the statements "Israel in effect announced that it was no longer a partner"in the peace process and called on Netanyahu to distance himself from the comments.
Comparing the Soviet-born one-time bouncer to a "bull in a china shop," Opher Pines Paz of the center-left Labor Party warned that ultra-nationalist Lieberman was "a strategic threat to Israel." "This is proof of total irresponsibility," he told public radio. "The damage that he has caused will take years to repair."
It marked the second day running of controversial statements by firebrand Lieberman, which have sparked furious reactions by Palestinians already worried about a cabinet led by Netanyahu, who opposes giving them a state. "This minister is an obstacle to peace. He will cause harm to Israel first," Yasser Abed Rabbo, an aide to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, told the AFP news agency. "Nothing obliges us to deal with a racist person hostile to peace such as Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Lieberman," he said.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who has called advancing a two-state solution "critical," called Netanyahu upon his assuming office, saying he looked forward to working with Netanyahu on his concerns about Iran and reiterated his desire to advance the peace process. Meanwhile a spokesman for the U.S. State Department declined to comment on Lieberman's statements, saying Washington was instead focusing on Netanyahu's pledges to continue negotiations with the Palestinians.
Invitations
A spokeswoman for U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said that he looked forward to working with Netanyahu, including "the resumption of the Middle East peace process, with the aim of achieving an independent and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace with a secure Israel, and a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace as envisaged in Security Council resolutions."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called Lieberman and the two agreed to meet "as soon as possible," an official with the Lieberman’s office told the AFP. Lieberman has also received invitations for a visit from counterparts in Italy and Spain and has spoken over the phone with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
In an attack that was bound to spark more hard-line rhetoric from the new Israeli government ministers, a 13-year-old Israeli boy was killed and a 7-year-old wounded yesterday when an axe-wielding Palestinian went on the rampage in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Far-right MPs quickly said the attack was a consequence of policies by the previous Israeli government headed by Ehud Olmert, who had conducted talks with the Palestinians and had removed some of the more than 500 roadblocks in the West Bank.
AVIGDOR Lieberman, in his own words
Excerpts from speeches and statements by new Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the hawkish Yisrael Beitenu Party:
"Without loyalty there is no citizenship."
"Only Lieberman understands Arabic."
Lieberman campaign slogans for the Feb. 10 general election, widely seen as attacks on Israel's Arab citizens, who make up 20 percent of Israel's population of 7 million.
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"At the end of the Second World War, not only the criminals were executed at the Nuremberg trials, but also those who collaborated with them. I hope that this will be the fate of the collaborators in this house."
Speech to Israel's parliament, referring to Israeli Arab legislators who met political leaders of the violently anti-Israel Hamas. May 4, 2005.
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"I stand at the head of the most diverse political party in the Knesset. É I find it a bit rich to be called a bigot."
"I also advocate the creation of a viable Palestinian state."
Excerpts from Feb. 25 article by Lieberman in the New York-based Jewish Week newspaper, in which he notes that his party's lawmakers include women, people with disabilities, a Druse Arab, a convert to Judaism and a religious Zionist.
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"I will not be able to accept a situation in which Likud says that it will continue the political process [with the Palestinians]. É We will not give up on one millimeter of the Golan Heights. This must be said clearly. We want a right-wing government that will speak clearly and not stammer."
Lieberman on Yisrael Beitenu Web site. Jan. 28
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"Israel is under a dual terrorist attack, from within and from [abroad] É and terrorism from within is always more dangerous than terrorism from [abroad]."
Address to a security conference near Tel Aviv, Feb. 2.
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"If he wants to talks to us, he should come here, and if he doesn't want to come, he can go to hell."
Statement in parliament complaining that Israeli leaders frequently visit Egypt but Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has never made a return visit to Israel. October 2008.