Israeli official hits peace efforts

Says concessions will lead to wars

April 02, 2009|Josef Federman, Associated Press

JERUSALEM - Israel's new hard-line foreign minister delivered a scathing critique of Mideast peace efforts yesterday, rejecting the past year of US-led negotiations and telling a room crowded with cringing diplomats that concessions to the Palestinians only invite war.

Avigdor Lieberman's first speech since taking office, along with accusations by the moderate Palestinian president that the new Israeli government opposes peace, signaled tough times ahead for the Obama administration's regional diplomacy.

"Whoever thinks that concessions . . . will achieve something is wrong. He will bring pressures and more wars," Lieberman said. "What we have to explain to the world is that the list of priorities must change."

The appointment of Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu, has raised international concerns because of his hard-line positions on peace and an election campaign that was widely seen as racist.

Lieberman's campaign proposal to strip the citizenship of people who do not pledge loyalty to the state and slogan that "only Lieberman understands Arabic" were viewed as thinly veiled swipes at Israel's Arab minority.

His speech at the Foreign Ministry only added to Palestinian trepidation over the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his first term as prime minister a decade ago, Netanyahu took a tough line in peace talks and frequently clashed with his Palestinian counterparts.

Netanyahu, who took office yesterday, has tried to portray a softer image this time around, saying he will seek a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. But he has not outlined how that deal might look, and he refused to accept the Palestinian demand for an independent state on lands occupied by Israel.

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