Israeli Official: Kill Hamas Leaders
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israeli Official: Kill Hamas Leaders
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By JOSEF FEDERMAN
The Associated Press
Saturday, November 18, 2006; 5:23 PM
JERUSALEM -- Israel's deputy prime minister on Saturday said Israel
should assassinate Hamas' leadership, ignore the moderate Palestinian
president and walk away from international peace efforts, the latest in
a string of hard-line positions voiced by the newest member of the Cabinet.
The comments by Avigdor Lieberman came as the rival Palestinian
factions, Hamas and Fatah, continued talks on forming a unity
government. President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah hopes the coalition deal
will enable him to revive peace efforts with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought Lieberman into the government
last month to shore up a shaky coalition government weakened by the
summer war in Lebanon. The Moldova-born Lieberman enjoys wide support
among Israel's large community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
But since joining the government as minister of strategic affairs,
Lieberman's inflammatory statements, such as Saturday's call for Hamas'
leaders to be sent to "paradise," have raised fears that peace efforts
will be frozen.
Olmert has tried distance himself from Lieberman, saying he remains
committed to the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, which envisions an
independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
"His comments are his own. They don't reflect Israeli policy," Olmert's
spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said Saturday.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Lieberman said he believes the Palestinians
are not interested in setting up their own state, but rather in
destroying Israel. He said Israel must abandon past peace deals, known
as the Oslo accords, and the road map.
"A continuation of Oslo, of the road map ... will lead us to another
round of conflict, a much more bloody round, and in the end to an even
deeper deadlock, and it threatens our future," he said.
He dismissed Abbas, elected president in 2005, as an ineffective leader
who should be ignored, and said Israel must get tougher with the Hamas
and Islamic Jihad militant groups, particularly their leaders.
"They ... have to disappear, to go to paradise, all of them, and there
can't be any compromise," he said.
Israel has killed a series of Hamas leaders in targeted missile strikes
in recent years, including the group's founder, but has not targeted
members of the Hamas-led government elected 10 months ago.
The leader of the Hamas bloc in the Palestinian parliament, Mushir
al-Masri, said any attack on the group's leaders would trigger immediate
retaliation. The group has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide
bombings over the past six years.
Lieberman's party Yisrael Beiteinu, or "Israel Our Home," has 11 seats
in Israel's 120-member parliament and provides a comfortable safety net
to Olmert in parliament votes.
But the government expansion has been roundly criticized by Israeli
doves and Arab activists, who equated Lieberman with far-right European
politicians Joerg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Lieberman's recent calls
to strip Israeli Arabs of citizenship and transfer them to Palestinian
jurisdiction drew widespread condemnations.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a top Abbas aide, said Lieberman's
ideas "are a recipe for the continuation of bloodshed, violence,
extremism and hatred between the two sides."
Abbas, meanwhile, was in Gaza on Saturday to push forward with
negotiations with Hamas on forming a unity government. Negotiators said
the sides were making progress and tackling the distribution of Cabinet
ministries.
Both sides hope the new government, made up of independent experts
acceptable to the rival parties, can bring about an end to a crippling
international aid boycott imposed after Hamas was elected to power in
January.
Israel and Western donor nations have demanded that Hamas renounce
violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and accept past peace deals
_ conditions Hamas rejects. The emerging government is expected to take
a vague position toward Israel in hopes that the West will lift the
sanctions.
Negotiators have agreed on a new prime minister _ U.S.-educated Mohammed
Shabir, the former president of the Islamic University in Gaza City _
but differences are expected over the distribution of Cabinet
portfolios. The treasury and the Interior Ministry, with its control
over the security forces, are likely to be hotly contested.
In a sign of progress, Abbas held his first meeting with Shabir on
Saturday. Aides said the talks were informal and no decisions were made.
Abbas later met with the current prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of
Hamas, who would have to resign to clear the way for Shabir to take office.
Haniyeh didn't speak to reporters after the meeting, but his spokesman,
Ghazi Hamad, said he was canceling an upcoming tour of Arab and Muslim
countries to focus on the unity talks.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Hamas government criticized the U.N. General
Assembly's call for an end to military operations in the Gaza Strip.
The nonbinding resolution, passed in a special emergency session Friday,
did not go far enough, said government spokesman Ghazi Hamad. "The
ongoing Israeli attacks on the Palestinian civilians are war crimes that
violate international law. Therefore, sanctions must imposed on Israel,"
he said.
Israel's U.N. ambassador also criticized the resolution, saying it was a
"farce."
In Gaza, a 21-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli army fire and a
16-year-old boy was shot dead by troops in a separate incident,
Palestinian security officials said.
Hundreds of Palestinians also formed a human shield around the home of a
militant in the northern Gaza Strip late Saturday to prevent an Israeli
airstrike on the building, residents said.
People flocked to the home of Mohammedweil Baroud after he received a
warning from the army giving him 30 minutes to leave the house. Baroud
is a commander in the Popular Resistance Committees in the northern town
of Beit Lahiya who is charge of firing homemade rockets at Israel.
Israel routinely orders occupants out of homes ahead of airstrikes on
suspected weapons-storage facilities, saying it wants to avoid
casualties. The incident in Beit Lahiya was the first time Palestinians
have tried to prevent such an airstrike.