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JPost.com » Israel » Article Apr 24, 2009 0:14&nbsp;|&nbsp;Updated Apr 24, 2009 13:54 'World leaders must drop their slogans' By DAVID HOROVITZ AND AMIR MIZROCH PrintSubscribe articleTitle = ' \'World leaders must drop their slogans\' '; showOdiogoReadNowButton ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566',articleTitle,'0', 290, 55); E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this? showInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566', '0', 290, 0); Talkbacks for this article: 117 &nbsp; | &nbsp;Avg. rating 4.61 out of 5</s

The international community has to "stop speaking in slogans" if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since taking the job.

"Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world," he said. "Just today, I saw the political adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Chinese foreign minister and the Czech prime minister. And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers..." Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as "land for peace" and "two-state solution," were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said.

Avigdor Lieberman, the outspoken far-right Israeli politician, is set to be appointed his country's next foreign minister in a new coalition deal.

Under the deal, agreed late on Sunday night, Lieberman would be both foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, giving him an important influence in shaping the new government's policies.

Both Netanyahu and Lieberman have stopped short of endorsing a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians, which may set them at odds with the international community, particularly the Obama administration which has promised to "aggressively" pursue a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's unusually blunt call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman from his post has sparked a political backlash among Lieberman's allies in Jerusalem. During the premier's visit to Paris last week, Sarkozy urged Netanyahu to "get rid" of hard-line Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Channel Two reported on Monday.

The Foreign Ministry responded to the report by lambasting the French leader for his "intolerable intervention in internal Israeli affairs."

The French president reportedly told Netanyahu that while he usually scheduled talks with Israel's top foreign envoys on visit to Paris he could not bring himself to meet with Lieberman. According to Channel Two, this statement was accompanied by disparaging hand gestures. Sarkozy then advised Netanyahu to fire Lieberman and bring former foreign minister Tzipi Livni back into the coalition, according to the report. Netanyahu reportedly told Sarkozy that Lieberman came across differently in private than his public appearances would suggest.

In a blunt and belligerent speech on his first day as Israel’s new foreign minister, the hawkish nationalist Avigdor Lieberman declared Wednesday that “those who wish for peace should prepare for war” and that Israel was not obligated by understandings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reached at an American-sponsored peace conference in late 2007.

“Those who think that through concessions they will gain respect and peace are wrong,” Mr. Lieberman said during a transfer ceremony at the Foreign Ministry. “It is the other way around; it will lead to more wars.”

The aim of the Annapolis process, as it became known, was to agree on the framework for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2008, a goal that was not achieved. Mr. Lieberman said that the Israeli government “never ratified Annapolis, nor did Parliament,” and that it therefore “has no validity.”

Israel's new foreign minister dismayed the international community today with a rancorous analysis of the peace process and an announcement that the new government favours aggression rather than concessions to the Palestinians.

In his first speech since taking office, the rightwinger Avigdor Lieberman dismissed the last round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, arguing that Israeli concessions made in a bid to secure peace had all been fruitless.

"Those who want peace should prepare for war and be strong," he said. "There is no country that made concessions like Israel. Since 1967 we gave up territory that is three times the size of Israel. We showed willingness. The Oslo process started back in 1993, and to this day I have not seen that we reached peace."

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday that he believed the U.S. and Israel will resolve their differences over Jewish settlements, and accused the Palestinians of using the issue to avoid peace talks.

"The settlements are not an obstacle to advancing peace," Lieberman said on Friday. "In the 19 years before 1967, there were no settlements but there was terror. During the disengagement, Israel evacuated 24 settlements and in response got Hamas rule in Gaza and rockets on Sderot." Advertisement "It's very clear that ... the settlements ... [are] an excuse for those that tried to avoid any peace talks," he said.

Ban, meanwhile, stressed that settlement construction must end and warned of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Despite his hard-line and inflammatory rhetoric, however, Lieberman may be a pragmatist. Unlike many on Israel's right — including Netanyahu — Lieberman supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a Ha'aretz interview after taking office, Lieberman said Israel should abide by the 2002 Roadmap, which calls for a Palestinian state.

The Roadmap obliges the Palestinians to stop violence and dismantle the capabilities of terror organizations, and reform their political institutions, before any movement toward the creation of a Palestinian state. But, in the same phase, it obliges Israel to freeze settlement construction and dismantle all settlement outposts built since March 2001.

Lieberman appears to recognize those obligations, and in the Ha'aretz interview, he mocked Olmert and his team as hypocrites who advocated peace but did little to achieve it. "How many outposts did Olmert, Barak and Livni evacuate?" he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman late Wednesday reiterated Israel’s objection to a complete settlement freeze as the United States considers allowances that could permit some projects already under way to proceed.

"We want to see a stop to the settlements," Clinton told reporters as she stood next to Lieberman, himself a settler. "We think that is an important and essential part of pursuing the efforts leading to a comprehensive agreement and the creation of a Palestinian next to an Israeli Jewish state that is secure in its borders and future," she said.

Israel did not have "any intention to change the demographic balance" of the West Bank, said Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, part of Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition government. "But we think that as in any place, babies are born, people get married, some pass away and we cannot accept this vision about an absolutely complete freezing of settlements," said Lieberman. "I think that we must keep the natural growth," he said.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Thursday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to disavow Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's remarks that Israel was not bound by commitments it made at a U.S.-sponsored conference to pursue creation of a Palestinian state.

the remarks do not represent Israel. These are remarks that hurt Israel," she said.

Lieberman said on Wednesday that Israel was changing its policies on the peace process and was not bound by previous commitments made at a 2007 gathering in Annapolis, Maryland.

During an official ceremony at the President's Residence on Wednesday, Lieberman said: "There is one document that obligates us - and that's not the Annapolis conference, it has no validity.

His speech was made in reference to a 2007 gathering in Annapolis, Maryland attended by participants from about 40 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Indonesia. Advertisement "The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did Knesset," Lieberman said. He said that instead, Israel would follow a course charted by the U.S.-backed peace road map.

The peformance-based plan made the creation of a Palestinian state contingent on the Palestinians reining in militants. It also obligated Israel to freeze all settlement activity on Palestinian land.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth."

Meanwhile, Clinton reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell has said a key element has been trying to pin down exactly what Israel means by the "natural growth" of settlements that Netanyahu has said he will defend. In principle, Netanyahu says he wants growing families to be able to accommodate their children in the towns that Israelis have built.

Iran is the main obstacle to peace in the Mideast, Israel's new foreign minister said in an interview published Friday.

Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post that it will be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region" without dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

His comments come as differences have appeared between the hard-line government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration over the peace process. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. seeks a "two-state" solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while Netanyahu has not publicly embraced the principle. Israelis have also expressed concern over Obama's calls for outreach to Iran, which Israel considers its top nemesis.

Israel's new Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has been questioned by police for at least seven hours over corruption allegations.

Police said Mr Lieberman was questioned under caution on suspicion of "bribery, money-laundering and breach of trust" as part of an ongoing investigation.

A spokesman for Mr Lieberman said it was "the same investigation that has been ongoing for the past 13 years and which he has petitioned the courts to have speeded up.

Mr Lieberman's speech came a day after Mr Netanyahu offered the Palestinians self-rule in place of the statehood that had at least rhetorically been on offer in a declaration accompanying the relaunch of peace talks under the leadership of Ehud Olmert at the Annapolis conference. But Mr Lieberman said "The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did parliament."

Mr Lieberman took issue with the very idea of concessions towards the Palestinians saying that "whoever thinks that through concessions peace will be achieved is mistaken. He is only inviting pressure and more wars."

Mr Lieberman said that instead of the Annapolis process, Israel would follow the "road map", the name of a 2003 blueprint of reciprocal steps advancing to a two-state solution. But Israel's cabinet never ratified that agreement, and the government has instead used the term to refer to a cabinet decision spelling out reservations about the plan.

Israeli campaigners and left-wing lawmakers have condemned moves to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the Nakba - the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation.On Sunday a government panel backed putting the bill, proposed by the party of far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, before the Israeli Knesset. A Labour minister opposed it; Hadash, a mainly Arab party, called it "racist".

Under the proposed legislation, people caught marking the Nakba could be jailed for up to three years. Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beiteinu, says the bill is "intended to strengthen unity in the state of Israel". The Hadash MK Hanna Swaid called it "racist and immoral" and "a fierce insult on democratic and political rights".

Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog, said it "could impair freedom of expression and freedom of protest and achieve the opposite goal - increasing alienation and strengthening extremists".

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday called Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman a "mafia boss," hitting back at Israel's top diplomat over accusations that Caracas has allowed Hezbollah to establish militant cells in its territory.

Israeli officials also have expressed concern at Iran's growing ties with leftist-led nations in Latin America. Iranian companies are building apartments, cars, tractors and bicycles in Venezuela and the two countries' leaders have exchanged visits.

Iran has opened new embassies in Bolivia and Nicaragua and a secret Israeli report recently suggested that Bolivia and Venezuela were supplying uranium to Iran for its nuclear program - an allegation sharply denied by both Latin American countries.

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman for highly contentious construction on West Bank land known as E1, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

The plan is for the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim to build 3000 new housing units on the territory, which stretches between it and Jerusalem, the source was quoted as saying.

Construction in the area is particularly sensitive because it would create contiguity between the settlement and the capital, which in turn would prevent Palestinian construction between East Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Israel, whose founding idea was branded as racism by the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 and which faced an Arab boycott for decades, is no stranger to isolation. But in the weeks since its Gaza war, and as it prepares to inaugurate a hawkish right-wing government, it is facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.

The issue has not gone unnoticed here, but it has generated two distinct and somewhat contradictory reactions. On one hand, there is real concern. Global opinion surveys are being closely examined and the Foreign Ministry has been granted an extra $2 million to improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy.

But there is also a growing sense that outsiders do not understand Israel’s predicament, so criticism is dismissed.“People here feel that no matter what you do you are going to be blamed for all the problems in the Middle East,” said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of politics and international communication at Bar Ilan University. “Even suicide bombings by Palestinians are seen as our fault for not establishing a Palestinian state.”

The new government of Israel is seeking to reorient the country’s foreign policy, arguing that to rely purely on the formulas of trading land for peace and promising a Palestinian state fails to grasp what it views as the deeper issues: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state and the rising hegemonic appetite of Iran.

Israel’s effort to switch the discussion to Iran is likely to be met in Washington and in European capitals with the assertion that it is precisely because of the need to build an alliance to confront Iran that Israel must move ahead vigorously with the Palestinians as well as with the Syrians.

It seems likely that the plan that Mr. Netanyahu will present to Mr. Obama will have a strong regional component in an attempt to fend off pressure on Israel to accept the Arab League peace plan, which calls on Israel to return to the 1967 borders as well as to accept a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel. The new Israeli government completely rejects both.