LIEBERMAN LASHES ABBAS AND ISRAELI DIPLOMATS
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LIEBERMAN LASHES ABBAS AND ISRAELI DIPLOMATS
Israel’s ultra-Zionist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday
questioned on Israeli radio if President Mahmud Abbas represents all
Palestinians, given his lack of authority in the Gaza Strip.
He called the Palestinian Authority ‘a bunch of terrorists,’ adding
that there is ‘no chance of reaching peace with the Palestinians in
the coming 20 years’.
Abbas, in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper on Sunday, said that
the Netanyahu government ‘has not presented anything positive so far.’
Lieberman added: ‘Our Palestinian partner Abu Mazen (Abbas) is
problematic. He does not represent Gaza and his legitimacy in the West
Bank is in doubt.’
‘We don’t have to buy an entry ticket for talks,’ Lieberman said of
the Palestinian demand that peace negotiations can only resume if
there is a total freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied
West Bank.
‘National honour is an important value in the Middle East, and the
time for obsequious attitudes is over. We have no need to adopt false
pretences in a bid to please,’ Lieberman said.
Lieberman has also warned Abbas against ending security cooperation
with Israel and said Tel Aviv had made enough gestures to the
Palestinian Authority president.
‘We’ve made a series of gestures to Abbas, including Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu’s policy speech at Bar Ilan, the removal of West
Bank roadblocks, the settlement construction freeze and allowing him
to hold the Fatah conference in Bethlehem,’ he said.
‘I have heard Abbas recently threatening to end security cooperation
with Israel,’ he continued on Israeli FM. ‘He’s the only one who would
lose out from that, both personally and from the point of view of the
PA.
‘On the contrary; there is a limit to hypocrisy. You can’t speak of a
new era and at the same time sentence to death those who sell land to
Jews, a sentence signed by Abbas.’
Lieberman also criticised the conduct of several Israeli ambassadors
stationed around the world.
At an ambassadors’ conference held at the Foreign Ministry, Lieberman
told a shocked audience that he ‘has seen that some ambassadors
identify themselves with the other side to such an extent that they
are all the time trying to justify and explain the position of the
other side.’
‘The era of grovelling is over,’ Lieberman said.
He opened the conference with a tirade against Turkey, the
Palestinians and European countries, and concluded it by reprimanding
Israeli diplomats.
The problem with Israeli diplomacy over the years, Lieberman argued,
is that it does not do enough to preserve the ‘honour of the State of
Israel’.
Unnamed officials in the ministry assessed that Lieberman was
directing his remarks especially at Gaby Levy, posted in Turkey, who
is making efforts to mend ties between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
Turkey has issued severe criticisms of Israel since Operation Cast
Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, and the phrasing of some of the
statements by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan shocked Israeli
officials.
Lieberman opposes Turkey resuming its role as mediator between Israel
and Syria in indirect peace talks and said it would not be so long as
he remains in his position.
Netanyahu on the other hand has said that the conditions for resuming
negotiations with the Palestinians are reaching their conclusion, and
spoke favourably of the need to reach a peace agreement and establish
a demilitarised Palestinian state alongside a Jewish State of Israel.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Israeli president Shimon Peres
acknowledged on Sunday that the president had spoken on a number of
occasions with Abbas since Netanyahu took office in March, the
Jerusalem Post said.
The official said it was ‘premature’ to talk about whether Abbas had
agreed to attend a tripartite summit with Netanyahu and Mubarak, the
Egyptian president.
Abbas continues to refuse to sit down and talk with Netanyahu. He has
said all that the Netanyahu government was doing was ‘negative’ and
what it was doing in eastern Jerusalem was ‘unacceptable.’
A spokesman for Netanyahu could not confirm that Netanyahu was using
Peres as a conduit to Abbas.
Abbas was set to meet Egyptian President Husni Mubarak on Monday on
the ‘peace’ process. Mubarak will brief Abbas on the outcome of his
talks with Netanyahu last week.
Abbas had met on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh with Gen Omar Suleiman,
director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, and discussed with
him the prospects of resuming talks with Israel and efforts to
reconcile Fatah and Hamas.
The Israeli media speculated that the PA chief held a secret meeting
with an ‘unidentified important personality’ in Egypt, or with Hamas’
politburo chief Khaled Mishaal, who is currently visiting Saudi
Arabia.
Following a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal,
Mishaal blamed Israel for delaying negotiations over the exchange of
hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for captured Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit.
Mishaal said: ‘The Israeli position keeps changing. They take one step
forward and two back.’
After the Abbas-Mubarak meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul
Gheit and Suleiman will travel to Washington for talks with the Obama
administration on advancing the peace process.
The US administration is making efforts to convince Abbas to agree to
the resumption of peace talks through a series of goodwill gestures on
the part of Israel – including the release of prisoners and the
transfer of territory under Israel’s security control (Area B) to
Palestinian security control (Area A).
Abbas has thus far refused to renew the talks as long as Israel
refuses to institute a complete freeze on West Bank settlement
building that would include East Jerusalem.
As Abbas embarks on his round of talks in Egypt, his Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad said the future Palestinian state will be ‘free of fences
and of settlements’.
In a conference held near Ramallah, Fayyad urged the international
community to intervene in order to ‘force Israel to stop ignoring
international law and the Palestinians’ rights’.
He stressed that ‘we will not agree to the agreements of the past
anymore, it is time for the transition period to come to an end’.
On Monday, the Israeli occupation forces issued a statement declaring
they decided to replace regular combat troops in permanent positions
in the West Bank with reserve troops, the Israeli press revealed. The
move aimed at allowing combat troops to move faster to front lines in
case of any ‘eventuality’ in the future.
It will strengthen the combat unit garrisoning in the northern front
line, close to the borders that separate Lebanon from the Palestinian
occupied territories, and the southern front line near the Hamas-
controlled Gaza Strip.
The 10 battalions of the reserve unit will be deployed across the West
Bank and the army will finalise the redeployment plan which is based
on the lessons drawn from the July, 2006 war on Lebanon within a few
days.
The plan, dubbed ‘regulars to the front line, reserves to the
territories’, has been the focus of a recent secret meeting between
the IDF top commanders and political leaders.
It added the army is ready ‘to respond to any potential security
threat or missile attack from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria or Iran.’