Lieberman: Consider severing ties with PA

Attila Somfalvi
Israel News

After calling for the replacement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and declaring that any other leader would be preferable, the foreign minister launched a verbal attack on Hamas and said Monday that Israel must consider severing all connections with the Palestinian Authority.

"We must consider the option of severing all connections with the authority," Avigdor Lieberman said at a Yisrael Beiteinu faction meeting ahead of the opening of the Knesset's winter session. "The Hamas regime must be toppled," he stated. In an aggressive speech, Lieberman stressed that Israel would not agree to be a "sucker". "We will not be spat upon, we will not agree to have a terrorist group dictate our actions," he said and reiterated his call for the toppling of the Hamas regime.

The foreign minister claimed that he was not seeking a confrontation with Abbas but made it clear that he was not willing to see the country "turn into the Middle east's ultimate sucker. We've gotten used to situations where someone spits in certain Israeli groups' faces and are told that it’s rain and not spit."
ליברמן בישיבת הסיעה בצהריים. "די להיות פראיירים" (צילום: גיל יוחנן)

Not a sucker? Avigdor Lieberman (Photo Gil Yohanan)
Speaking about Abbas he said sarcastically: "It is true that Abbas wrote a doctorate about Holocaust denial but that was a long time ago and he may have changed his mind or succeeded in hiding it. Even now, we've seen Abbas welcome terrorists just for killing Jews and offering them $5,000 each, maybe that's part of his peace efforts."

"It is important that we stop keeping silent," Lieberman noted. "When you read all of the UN Middle East representatives' comments you expect him to also address Abbas' statements. I expect him to have a modicum of objectivity when recommending examining the person responsible for the provocations."

Meanwhile the Labor Party convened its first meeting under the leadership of its new chairwoman, Shelly Yachimovich. "We have an ideological and political opportunity. We must be an arrowhead and opposition against the Likud government on both a diplomatic level and an economic level, Yachimovich said.

Moran Azulay contributed to this report