SWI NEWS: 30 Nissan 5769, Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
'World leaders must drop 'land for peace' slogans, stop Iran'
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.
The fact was, said the Israel Beiteinu leader, that the Palestinian issue was "deadlocked" despite the best efforts of a series of dovish Israeli governments. "Israel has proved its good intentions, our desire for peace," he said.
The path forward, he said, lay in ensuring security for Israel, an improved economy for the Palestinians, and stability for both.
"Economy, security, stability," he repeated. "It's impossible to artificially impose any political solution. It will fail, for sure. You cannot start any peace process from nothing. You must create the right situation, the right focus, the right conditions."
He said the government would be completing its thorough foreign policy review in the next two weeks, and that it would be made public for the first time at the scheduled May 18 White House talks between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The foreign minister spoke as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel on Thursday that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.
In the course of his wide-ranging interview, which will appear in full in Tuesday's Jerusalem Post Independence Day supplement, Lieberman insistently refused to rule in, or rule out, Palestinian statehood alongside Israel as the essence of a permanent accord, but emphatically endorsed Netanyahu's declared desire not to rule over a single Palestinian.
Equally emphatically, he said no peace proposal that so much as entertained the notion of a "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees could serve as a basis for negotiation.
"It cannot be on the table. I'm not ready to even discuss the 'right of return' of even one refugee," he said.
But he also made clear that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was not a precondition for progress.
"You know, we don't want to torpedo the process," he said. "But somebody who really wants a solution, somebody who really desires a real peace and a real agreement, must realize that this would be impossible to achieve without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state."
Lieberman said the new government would have no dealings with Hamas, which needed to be "suffocated," and that the international community also had to maintain the long-standing Quartet preconditions for dealing with the Islamist group.
The real reason for the deadlock with the Palestinians, said Lieberman, "is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. This conflict is really a very deep conflict. It started like other national conflicts. today it's a more religious conflict. Today you have the influence of some nonrational players, like al-Qaida."
And the biggest obstacle to any comprehensive solution, he said, "is not Israel. It is not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians."
Lieberman said the prime responsibility for thwarting Iran's march to a nuclear capability lay with the international community, not Israel, and especially the five permanent members of the Security Council. He was confident that stringent economic sanctions could yet achieve the desired result, and said he did not even "want to think about the consequences of a crazy nuclear arms race in the region."
He said it would be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region without resolving the Iranian problem." This, he said, related to Lebanon, Syria and problems with Islamic extremist terror in Egypt, the Gaza Strip and Iraq.
Nonetheless, Lieberman stressed that Israel did not regard stopping Iran as a precondition for Israeli efforts to make progress with the Palestinians. Quite the reverse, he said. "No, we must start with the Palestinian issues because it's our interest to resolve this problem. But there should be no illusions. To achieve an agreement, to achieve an end of conflict, with no more bloodshed, no more terror, no more claims - that's impossible until Iran ."
Noting what he called Syria's deepening ties with Iran, Lieberman said he saw no point whatsoever in resuming the indirect talks with Damascus conducted by the last government.
"We don't see any good will from the Syrian side," he said. "Only the threats, like 'If you're not ready to talk, we'll retake the Golan by military action...'"
Asked whether it troubled him to be perceived as an extremist in some circles, including overseas, Lieberman laughed and said, "So it's easy for me to surprise them."
He said he believed his international colleagues "respect me, and that they understand that I say what I mean, and I mean every word that I say."
As to whether his legal problems - he is under police investigation for alleged corruption - or other factors might lead to his ouster from the job, he said he believed this coalition would serve its full term, and that he would serve the full term as foreign minister.
Connect Gaza and West Bank now US presidential envoy George Mitchell is touring the region searching for signs of progress to report back to his boss and to move the peace process forward.
President Barack Obama and his aides have repeated over and over his support for the two-state solution, while the new Israeli government has refused to publicly support the Annapolis process and can't bring itself to use the three words: two-state solution. Obama also wants some quick confidence-building measures. One practical, short-term measure could be carried out quickly by the Israeli Defense Ministry without requiring any immediate political concessions. As Mitchell sets up his new office in Jerusalem with Keith Dayton as his security deputy and David Halle as his deputy for the peace talks, opening up the movement of goods and people from Gaza to the West Bank and back is something doable.
The traditional US diplomatic approach has been to impress on the process part of the "peace process." On the other hand, the often repeated Arab position is that the US can press Israel to amend its policies, either through cutting off aid or cutting off political protection (in other words abstaining rather than vetoing in the Security Council) or both.
Obama's impressive signals since day one in office (calling Arab leaders before European allies, appointing Mitchell and speaking on Al Arabiya TV) reflect a different approach than what has traditionally come out of Washington. In the last 30 years, US administrations have usually become deeply interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the last year of a two-term administration. So the process-only approach doesn't appear to be the thinking of the Obama administration.
On the other hand, it is not clear whether Washington has the stomach for a major confrontation with the new Israeli government. While leaks coming out of the White House say that the administration is preparing for such a possibility, few observers believe that this will be how things will in fact turn out.
ALTHOUGH THE main issue of difference at present is over the shape of any final outcome (two state or not), the more likely point of friction will most likely be issues that are taking place on the ground. A study of the Mitchell report (which was produced during the greatly pro-Israel Bush administration) points to settlements as the next point of confrontation. On this issue Mitchell and the US administration have been very clear even though they have not been effective. A freeze of all settlement activity which includes expansion and natural growth will certainly be the center of the focus for Mitchell and his team on the ground.
Jerusalem is another on-the-ground issue that will be the litmus test of the seriousness of the Obama administration. The repeated house demolitions and provocations in east Jerusalem point to the need to confront this issue very early on.
While clarity on the two-state solution would be welcomed by Palestinians, and while a true settlement freeze will send a powerful signal, the one major need for Palestinians today is somewhere else.
The separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is possibly the single biggest danger confronting the long-term Palestinian national aspiration. Mitchell has repeated what president George W. Bush and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had said, namely that a contiguous Palestinian state is in the national interest of the United States. In this respect it is imperative that peoples in both sectors of the Palestinian territories be able to travel freely, albeit with the needed security measures.
Irrespective of the outcome of the internal Palestinian dialogue taking place in Cairo, Gaza and the West Bank must be reconnected. There is no excuse why Palestinians living in either part of Palestine should be barred from traveling to the other part of the occupied Palestinian territories. Despite claims by Israelis that barring the movement of people and goods from both parts of the occupied Palestinian territories is done for security reasons, the real reasons are clearly political and strategic. Under the leadership of General Dayton, the most robust security checks can be made, but there is absolutely no excuse to bar Palestinians from moving from the West Bank to Gaza and the other way around.
Palestinians have high expectations from Obama and Mitchell. Connecting Gaza and the West Bank is doable and doesn't require Binyamin Netanyahu or Avigdor Lieberman to declare their support or rejection of the two-state solution. Such a connection could be the single most powerful message of hope that can be delivered in the next weeks or months. If not carried out, it is highly doubtful that a lasting peace agreement can be reached in the near or distant future.
The writer is general manager of Community Media Network Radio Al Balad.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman welcomes US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Connect Gaza and West Bank now US presidential envoy George Mitchell is touring the region searching for signs of progress to report back to his boss and to move the peace process forward.
Palestinian children hold candles during a demonstration in Gaza City last week.
Photo: AP
Israel shocked by Obama's approval of large Turkish arms sale to Lebanon
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 22, 2009, 10:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
Turkish commandoes will train Lebanese troops
DEBKAfile quotes senior Israeli military circles as staggered by the discovery that US president Barack Obama had approved a large Turkish arms sale to the Lebanese army, including the services of Turkish military instructors. This was taken as further proof that the US president is deaf to Israel's immediate security concerns. Lebanese president Gen. Michel Suleiman has more than once threatened neighboring Israel. When he signed the arms deal in Ankara Tuesday, April 21, he once again pledged publicly to place the Lebanese army at the disposal of the Shiite terrorist Hizballah in any confrontation with Israel.
If that happened, said one Israeli source, Israel could find itself under attack not just by Hizballah as in the past, but by a Lebanese army, well trained and armed by Turkey. He noted that more than 50 percent of Lebanon's fighting manpower are Shiites loyal to Hizballah.
The conviction is growing in Jerusalem that the US president endorsed the transaction as a means of breaking up the long-standing military pact between Israel and Turkey, because it interferes with his Middle East objectives. Our sources note that neither Washington nor Ankara bothered to inform Israel of the transaction or its scope.
After meeting Turkish president Abdullah Gul, Suleiman at the head of a large Lebanese military delegation signed the contracts for the sale and declared with deep satisfaction: "We reviewed the new policies towards the region in the light of President Obama's recent visit to Turkey."
Saudi plan is death trap for Israel, warns Lieberman
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in remarks carried by the Israeli media on Wednesday that the US-backed Saudi peace initiative is a death trap for the Jewish state.
Introduced in 2001, the Saudi initiative envisions a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the whole of the Arab Middle East, based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders.
The plan is vague, but generally defers to the Palestinians on the demand that so-called Arab "refugees" be allowed to flood the Jewish state.
Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama stated that he sees the Saudi initiative as the basis for making peace between Israel and its neighbors, and indicated that it will be part of his government's foreign policy.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has also come out in favor of launching regional negotiations based on the Saudi plan, though with some reservations. Barak and Lieberman have engaged in a heated debate over the issue, thus holding up the publication of an official peace process policy by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel marks Holocaust, warns new 'Hitler' has arrived
Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with a two-minute siren blast Tuesday morning that brought the entire nation to a standstill. A malfunction in Tel Aviv caused the sirens there to last an additional four minutes.
The sirens were followed by a day of solemn memorial ceremonies for the six million who perished in Nazi Germany's effort to exterminate the Jewish people. This year's Holocaust Remembrance Day focused on the 1.5 million Jewish children who died in Nazi death camps.
In a letter to lawmakers around the world, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin cautioned that with the rise of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the world was again being subjected to the kind of rhetoric, propaganda and beliefs that led to the Nazi Holocaust.
"Yesterday the world witnessed the return of Adolf Hitler," read Rivlin's letter, referring to Ahmadinejad's keynote address to the UN Human Rights Council anti-racism conference in Geneva, where he labeled Israel the source of all racism and violence in the world.
Rivlin went on to warn that Ahmadinejad, who is seeking nuclear weapons, may be directing most of his threats at Israel presently, but eventually, like Hitler, he will threaten the entire world.
Hamas threatens to abduct more Israeli soldiers
Damascus-based overall Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Monday said his group would abduct additional Israeli soldiers to be used as bargaining chips to secure the release of all Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli prisons.
Hamas expects new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to renege on the previous government's willingness to free over 1,000 Palestinian terrorists, including those who had directly murdered Israelis, in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
Though former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had eventually agreed to nearly all of Hamas' prisoner swap demands, the terror group still refused to finalize a deal.
