Former diplomats slam Liberman for saying disloyal Israeli Arabs should be decapitated
MK Ahmed Tibi calls Yisrael Beytenu chairman "Jewish ISIS."
By LAHAV HARKOVForeign Minister Avigdor Liberman speaks to the press before the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem(photo credit: EMIL SALMAN/POOL)
Former diplomats and intellectuals came out against Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman Monday, a day after he called to decapitate Israeli Arabs who are "against us.""Whoever is with us should get everything," the Yisrael Beytenu chairman said in a speech at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya Sunday. "Whoever is against us, there's nothing else to do. We have to lift up an axe and remove his head, otherwise we won't survive here."According to Liberman, Israel acts like "fools, misers and weaklings," and "there is no place for such people in the Middle East."Liberman repeated his party's platform that Umm al-Fahm and the area should be part of a future Palestinian state, not Israel."Israeli citizens who wave a black flag on Nakba Day [on which Israeli Arabs and Palestinians mark Israel's establishment as a tragedy] can leave, and I am willing to donate them to [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] very happily," he added.When an Arab student in the audience said she feels uncomfortable and accused Liberman of saying that she does not belong in Israel, the Foreign Minister responded: "You are a citizen and there is no problem with that. I expect every Arab, Christian or Jewish citizen to be loyal to our state, without a connection to religion, and enlist in national service."Former ambassador to South Africa and foreign minister director-general Alon Liel, former ambassador to France Daniel Shek and others spoke out against Liberman."Israel's number-one diplomat is waving an axe over the heads of citizens of the country that he represents, and in the same breath, he preaches to the whole world about fighting anti-Semitism," the diplomats said.MK Ahmed Tibi (Ta'al) called Liberman the "Jewish Islamic State."Tibi added that The Joint List, made up of several Arab parties and one mixed Arab-Jewish party, "will remove racists' and fascists' heads only through democratic means – bringing as many [Knesset] seats as possible and active participation in the election. The stronger we are, the weaker Jewish IS will be."
