He's only been in the job for a month, but already the foreign minister is fed up with the 'slogans' he keeps hearing from his international counterparts: occupation, settlements, land-for-peace, two-state solutions... His favored key words? Security (for Israel). A stronger economy (for the Palestinians). And stability (for all). Bringing peace to our region is more complex than sloganeering would allow, he tells The Jerusalem Post in this interview, his first with an Israeli newspaper. And it's time we all faced up to the inconvenient reality.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman speaks to the 'Post.'
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Last Thursday, just a few hours after The Jerusalem Post completed this interview with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, his American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, gave testimony on Capitol Hill that forcefully underlines the different emphases placed by the two allied governments on Middle East problem-solving.
If Israel wants the backing of moderate Arab nations in countering the profound threat posed by Iran, said the American secretary of state, then it needs to get deeply engaged in peace efforts with the Palestinians.
"For Israel to get the kind of strong support it is looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can't stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts. They go hand in hand," she told the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. Moderate Arab countries, she elaborated, "believe that Israel's willingness to re-enter into discussions with the Palestinian Authority strengthens them in being able to deal with Iran."
As Lieberman made crystal-clear in our interview, Israel has no desire to stall peace-making efforts with the Palestinians. Quite the contrary. The new government, he said, "intends to take the initiative."
But rather than progress with the Palestinians holding the key to combating Iran, Lieberman emphatically sees combating Iran as the key to progress with the Palestinians.
As he put it, "It's impossible to resolve any problem in our region without resolving the Iranian problem. This relates to Lebanon, to their influence in Syria, their deep involvement within Egypt, in the Gaza Strip, in Iraq. If the international community wants to resolve its Middle East problems, it's impossible because the biggest obstacle to this solution is the Iranians."
The new foreign minister, who insisted on conducting the conversation in his reasonable and improving English, was reluctant to go into the specifics of the new foreign policy strategy the coalition will be following. This is in part because it is still a work in progress, and in part because it is to be formally unveiled only on May 18, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House.
And despite several attempts to draw him out, he wouldn't rule in, or rule out, Palestinian statehood.
He did, however, sketch out some parameters. Among them: the contention that progress depends on improved security for Israel, a bolstered economy for the Palestinians, and stability for both; the refusal to so much as discuss a "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees; the clarification that Palestinian recognition of the "Jewish state" is critical to "real peace" but is not a precondition for substantive talks, and the goal of "suffocating" Hamas.
He also all-but ridiculed the idea of further indirect negotiations with Syria for the time being, added some nuances to his position on the hugely controversial issue of a loyalty oath for Israeli citizenship, insisted he would not be forced out of his job by the corruption investigations surrounding him, but stressed that his own personal situation would not affect Israel Beiteinu's presence in the coalition anyway.
Characteristically soft-spoken, puffing somewhat half-heartedly at a cigar along the way, Lieberman was carefully setting out what amounts to a call for his international colleagues to remake their thinking on Israel and the region - to "drop the slogans," face up to a reality that is far more complex than it is convenient to acknowledge, and give this new Israeli government some credit and some time as it tries to formulate proposals that will succeed where past peace-making efforts have failed.
He said his impression, to date, was that his foreign counterparts were taking the new government seriously, and respected him for his straight-talking. Clinton's remarks on Capitol Hill, however, make plain that it will be an uphill battle for Lieberman and the Netanyahu government, once they overhaul Israel's approach to peace-making, to persuade the international community to do anything similar.
Can we start with the issue of two states for two peoples. Wasn't the international basis for the establishment of Israel that there be a Jewish entity alongside an Arab entity? Is your government now departing from this paradigm or is the principle of two states still the applicable one?
First of all, we must understand why the Palestinian issue is deadlocked, because since 1993 we really made every effort. We had very dovish governments. We can start with Ehud Barak at Camp David, who made a very generous offer to [Yasser] Arafat and he rejected it. As for the Ariel Sharon government, we undertook an insane process called disengagement. We transferred thousands of Jews from the Gaza Strip. We evacuated tens of flowering settlements and we received in return Hamas and Kassam rockets. The last government of Ehud Olmert is the same. From what I saw in the papers, he really made a very very generous offer to Abu Mazen. And the same thing happened: Abu Mazen rejected it.
Were there elements that Olmert offered that were surprising to you?
Of course. I was shocked, as was everybody.
But more than this offer, more important at the end of the day: what was the final result? This was a very dovish government - without Lieberman, without Netanyahu. It was Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni. And the result? The Second Lebanon War, the operation in Gaza, severed diplomatic relations with Mauritania and Qatar, our soldier Gilad Schalit still in captivity.
