Lieberman tells 'Post' Israel won't compromise its interests.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFLieberman worried 311(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski )
Ahead of the anticipated imminent launch of indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has accused the Palestinians of hypocrisy and inflexibility, castigated the international community for failing to effectively counter such intransigence, and warned that Israel will not compromise its vital interests and “become another Czechoslovakia.”In an opinion piece submitted exclusively to The Jerusalem Post that will appear in Friday’s paper, Lieberman charges that both the Palestinians and the Syrians “reject every gesture and demand ever more concessions.”The foreign minister slams the Palestinian Authority for continuing “to glorify murder by dedicating public squares and streets in memory of terrorists responsible for the killing of hundreds of innocent people including foreign nationals.”He lambastes those parts of the international community that have joined the “constant attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense against murderous terror.”And he argues that such a climate “reveals to our neighbors the zero cost of their actions and enables them to become ever more extreme and violent.”The Netanyahu government in which he serves had hoped for a rapid resumption of direct talks with the Palestinians after taking office last year, but is now apparently set to enter indirect “proximity talks” in the very near future, after months of intensive American diplomatic effort.In his op-ed, Lieberman stresses that “real peace cannot be legislatedor imposed from the outside” but “can only be achieved through directnegotiations between the parties while developing mutual trust betweenthem.”He says that Israel is “prepared to pay a high price for peace with itsneighbors,” but the Nokdim resident argues that the settlements havenever been an obstacle to peace. “On the contrary, the unilateraldisengagement from Gush Katif, in which thousands of Jews wereevacuated and dozens of communities were destroyed, only yieldedincreasing Kassam rockets and an extremist Hamas government.”Israel, Lieberman declares, “will not become another Czechoslovakia andwill not succumb to international pressure to compromise its vitalinterests.”(The foreign minister’s article will appear in full in Friday’s FrontLines section of the Post.
