Avigdor Lieberman, the new Foreign Minister of Israel, has probably achieved more in his first 24 hours in office to endanger the security of Israel than Hamas and Hezbollah have achieved in 24 years.
According to the BBC Israel's new ultra-nationalist foreign minister has said it is not bound by a US-sponsored 2007 agreement to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. "The Annapolis conference, it has no validity," Lieberman said.
In an article headlined, "Israel FM rejects Annapolis deal" the BBC records Lieberman's outburst at the handover ceremony at the foreign ministry, prompting his predecessor Tzipi Livni to interrupt and diplomats to shift uncomfortably. At Annapolis, each side agreed to further discussions aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state. Correspondents say officials at the foreign ministry seemed taken aback at such a sudden and public repudiation of one of the main planks of Israeli diplomatic activity.
'No' to Annapolis = 'No' to Palestine
"There is one document that obligates us - and that's not the Annapolis conference, it has no validity," Mr Lieberman said. The document he was referring to was the international peace plan known as the Road Map, signed in 2003, while "the Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did parliament".
Haaretz reports, "New foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday that Israel was changing its policies on the peace process and was not bound by commitments it made at a U.S.-sponsored conference to pursue creation of a Palestinian state."
Although the incoming Netanyahu government has avoided committing itself to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Road Map endorsed by Mr Lieberman was also meant to achieve that aim.
On the Two State Solution
On the Road-Map Two State solution, Lieberman has said, "Israel needs to explain that the demand for a Palestinian state and the refugees' right of return is a cover for radical Islam's attempt to destroy the State of Israel."
Middle East envoy Tony Blair earlier warned Israel that the Palestinians must have their own state to avoid a major conflagration in the region.
"The alternative to a two-state solution is a one-state solution. If there is a one-state solution there is going to be a big fight," the former UK prime minister said on a visit to Brussels.
After Mr Lieberman's comments were published, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Mike Hammer, said the Obama administration remained "committed to the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security".
On Peace with Egypt
On peace with Egypt, Lieberman said recently, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak should "go to hell", and has suggested bombing the Aswan Dam, drowning Egypt in the waters of the Nile.
Warning that Egypt was liable to surprise Israel with an attack, as it did in 1973, he continued: "There are enough signs and enough assessments that Egypt is waiting for the right moment."
On Peace with Syria
According to the BBC, Lieberman has insisted he opposes withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights as part of peace negotiations with Syria. He said he was "very much in favour of peace with Syria - but only on one basis - peace in return for peace" and not, by implication, a land-for-peace deal.
On War with Iran
Back in July 2007, Israel Today quoted the then Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman as saying that he received the tacit blessing of Europe and the United States for an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
“If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us,” Lieberman told Army Radio following a meeting earlier in the week with NATO and European Union officials.
Lieberman said the Western powers acknowledged the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat to the Jewish state, but said that ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are “going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities,” even if diplomacy ultimately fails.
The message Lieberman said the NATO and EU officials conveyed to him is that Israel should “prevent the threat herself.”
In a Spiegel interview, Lieberman said "Iran is not an Israeli problem, it is a problem for the whole free world. What we have here is a clash of "different" civilizations, and Israeli is located at the front line. Bin Laden for example is not a rational person. What do you want to offer him? Money, territories? He would not accept anything in return for ending terror. The same is true of (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad... We have to take into account that the international community may not do anything and that Israel may have to act alone."
On Arabs in IsraelIn the Spiegel interview Lieberman said "When Ariel Sharon developed his disengagement plan for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, I argued: On the one hand you are establishing a monolithic Palestinian state without a single Jew, while Israel maintains an Arab population of 20 percent. It cannot be that there are one and a half states for one people and only half a state for the other. The connection between the Arabs in Israel and those in a Palestinian state will destroy us for sure."
On Israeli Foreign Policy
Reuters reports some of Lieberman's opinions that may well find their way into Israeli foreign policy.
2009 - "No loyalty, no citizenship" -- Lieberman's election slogan calling for legislation to require Israelis, including Arab citizens, to swear loyalty to the Jewish state.
"What we state unequivocally is that we are completely opposed to what has been and still is the guiding principle of Israel's foreign policy: 'land for peace' ... There is either 'peace for peace' or the exchange of territory and populations."
(Referring to his proposal to trade Arab-populated parts of Israel to a Palestinian state in exchange for Israel annexing Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank)
"You have to be generous to your friends and cruel to your enemies. We are simply a society of wimps."
2008 - "Time and time again our leaders go to Egypt to meet (President Hosni) Mubarak and he has never agreed to make an official visit here as president. If he wants to talk to us, he should come here. If he doesn't want to come here, he can go to hell."
2007 - (To an Israeli Arab fellow member of parliament:) "You are an ally in the Knesset of terrorists. I hope that Hamas will take care of you and all the rest once and for all. Don't worry, your day will come."
"If Israel has to deal with the Iranian threat by itself, it can do so."
2006 - Speaking of Israeli Arab legislators who support the Palestinian cause: "The fate of the collaborators in the Knesset will be identical to that of those who collaborated with the Nazis. Collaborators, as well as criminals, were executed after the Nuremberg trials at the end of the World War Two. I hope that will be the fate of collaborators in this house."
2001 - "Mubarak continues to act against us and to travel for consultations with Saddam Hussein. If he carries out his threat and puts forces into the Sinai, it would be an example of a (crossing) of the red line to which we would have to respond strongly, including by bombing the Aswan Dam."
Richard Sale has an excellent article, "Israel's Covert War on Iran Faces Disapproving White House" in the Middle East Times
See also The Independent on Lieberman's rejection of the Two State Solution.
