Back
in business: FM Avigdor Liberman
On
Wednesday Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Likud-Beytenu) denounced the
supposed need for Israel to make "painful concessions" to achieve peace.
Liberman slammed the notion as "a pure invention of people that don't know
the facts and don't know the history."
Liberman
added "we evacuated 21 blossoming communities [during the "Disengagement" from
Gaza and northern Samaria - ed.] ...and instead of peace we had our communities
fired on."
His
comments were made during a speech at the "Israel Conference for Roads
to Friendship and Society" at the Sapir Academic College. Just this
month Liberman returned to his
post after a 10 month absence over fraud and breach of trust
charges that he was recently cleared of.
Rather
than on the basis of Israeli concessions, Liberman argued that countries
make their decision to support or oppose Israel in accordance with their own
interests.
In
countries with a relatively small Jewish minority and a relatively large
Muslim population, as in Europe for example, the national policy leans in a
clear direction against Israel, according to Liberman. He said "there are cold
and pragmatic interests and considerations that, even if I don't agree with
them, I can understand them."
Responding
to questions about relations between Israel and the US, Liberman spoke in favor
of finding other allied countries, saying "there are enough countries that we
can be a help to and therefore our foreign policy must be to search for
allies."
Regarding
allies, Liberman said "we need to find countries that don't
need financial assistance and aren't beholden to the Arab world." He
added that the thought that countries "will act for our good out of
altruism is simple naivety."
The
statements come during rocky times for US-Israeli ties. Analysts have
said the US is turning its back on
Israel in supporting proposed deals with Iran on
its nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the current US
administration claims that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are"illegitimate."
Meanwhile
Egypt, longtime ally of America, just Wednesday reportedly sealed an arms deal with
Russia worth billions of dollars as its US ties have soured
following former President Mohammed Morsi's ouster. The deal reportedly was
meant to allow Egypt to at least reach parity with the
IDF.
Liberman
spoke about the Arab world as well, saying "the general trend as we
saw in the Palestinian elections and the 'Arab spring' is a turn towards
radical Islam which increasingly controls Arab society."
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