Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni issued rare criticism of the international
community at The Jerusalem Post’s Diplomatic Conference at Herzliya’s Daniel
Hotel Wednesday when she told a room full of ambassadors that Israel keeping
settlements was a requirement for achieving peace with the Palestinian
Authority.
Before Livni’s address, current Foreign Minister Avigdor
Liberman spoke to the ambassadors and continued his recent criticism of the
international community’s handling of Israel and the Palestinians. But Livni’s
criticism surprised the ambassadors.
“It doesn’t matter what you think
about settlements,” she said with uncharacteristic bluntness. “We have
settlement blocs close to the Green Line, and the only way for the conflict with the
Palestinians to end is for Israel to keep them.
"Any pre-agreement by the
international community to a withdrawal to 1967 borders before the talks occur,
makes it difficult to negotiate. It was clear in the talks I conducted with the
Palestinians that there would not be return to 1967 borders.”
Livni said
she was frustrated as an Israeli when the international community compared
casualties caused by the IDF, which acts to defend Israel and target terrorists,
to those killed by terrorists who target civilians.
“The message
terrorists need to hear is that there are things that the international
community considers illegitimate,” she said. “It is unacceptable that soldiers
feel that they cannot act against those who try to harm them.”
She warned
that Israel was becoming more isolated. She said Israel could not allow that to
happen, not because of the economy but because the international community
affected Israel’s legitimacy to act against terrorism and in
self-defense.
When Livni said that Israelis needed to change how they
viewed settlements and suggested that there was no connection between
settlements and security, Yisrael Beytenu immediately attacked her on
Twitter.
“Tzipi Livni says no connection between settlements and
security, standing in opposition to decades of even left-wing thinking,” a
Yisrael Beytenu spokesman wrote.
The Yisrael Beytenu spokesman added
later: “Livni ignores that freeze in upgrade in relations with EU was under her
administration.
Easy to blame others for her mistakes.”
Livni
rejects parallels drawn by Liberman between the Holocaust and the current
situation.
“I cannot accept comparisons between today and the Holocaust,
which cheapen the Holocaust,” she said.
“There are no similarities
whatsoever between the situation of Israeli civilians today and that of Jews in
Europe then.”
Her comments came after Liberman slammed the international
community for abandoning Israel, and warned that Israel would not allow itself
to become a “second Czechoslovakia.”
Livni ended her address by
expressing hope that following the PA’s success in obtaining United Nations
recognition as a non-member state, negotiations could resume soon.
“Now
that the Palestinians won in the UN, you should tell the Palestinians to
relaunch negotiations with Israel,” she told the ambassadors.
“Maybe
there is a chance now.”
|