Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday repeated statements made by his political partner Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed that Israel will not stop building in Jerusalem.
Liberman also commented on recent criticism reportedly made by US President Barack Obama who said Israel "doesn't know what its own best interests are" regarding Jerusalem's advancement of new settlement plans.
The
former foreign minister asserted that while there are disagreements
between the two countries about settlement building in east Jerusalem,
Israel and the United States still collaborate in many areas.
"Not
you nor I heard Obama [make these comments], we read Jeff Goldberg.
This is a journalist with a clear agenda," Liberman said at a cultural
event in Beersheba. "It is okay for friends to have disagreements," he
added.
The Yisrael Beytenu leader insisted he supports
Netanyahu's call on the Palestinians to negotiate without preconditions
and that the prime minister's Bar-Ilan speech, that called for a
two-state solution, is still valid.
"The only ones who refuse peace are the Palestinians," Liberman said.
On
Friday, Palestinian activists erected a new tent outpost northwest of
Jerusalem in an area between Beit Iksa and Lifta, after the IDF
bulldozed another encampment that was erected by Palestinians on an
undeveloped area in the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, known as E1.
The
activists had been targeting E1 to protest Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
November 30 decision to advance plans to build 3,500 Jewish homes on the
site.