The Strategic Threats

Israel Beytenu Leaves the Gov't Coalition

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman announced his party's departure from the coalition Wednesday morning, saying the rightist party would not tolerate negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the core issues of the conflict.

"We said clearly that if there would be negotiations on the core issues, we wouldn't be in [the government]," Lieberman told a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.

Lieberman, who served as strategic affairs minister in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government, said peace talks must address the issue of transferring the Israeli Arab population to Palestinian control.

"From our point of view, the concept of land for peace is out of the question," said Lieberman. "The principle must be exchanges of territory and population."

The outgoing minister said a withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders would not bring peace or an end to terrorism. "You know what will happen the day after we withdraw to the 1967 borders?" asked Lieberman. "Israeli Arabs will request Palestinian citizenship, and will continue to receive social security payments from the State of Israel."

"They don't hide this - they say quite clearly that they will demand autonomy in the Galilee and the Negev, and will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state," he continued.

"Its not that we oppose the solution of two states for two peoples," said the Yisrael Beytenu chairman. "On the contrary, we support it - two states for two peoples, not a state and a half for one people and half a state for the other."

"We can't accept the assymetry of a Palestinian state without a single Jew, and Israel becoming a binational state with more than 20 percent minorities," he continued.

"Our problem is not with the Palestinians, it is with Israeli Arabs," he said. "[Israeli Arab MKs] Ahmed Tibi and Mohammed Barakeh are more dangerous than [Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled] Meshal and [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah, because they operate from within." 

 originally published in Ha'aretz